


call my bluff, call you babe

by smileymikey



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:35:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25752196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smileymikey/pseuds/smileymikey
Summary: Pope rolls his eyes. “He wants a coffee,” he tells Kie. “He’s just grumpy.”“Fuck you, I’m not grumpy,” JJ says.Pope just laughs, throws an arm around his shoulders. “Whatever you say, baby.”Kie feels the butterflies in her stomach turn to dust.“Just because I don’t drink your girly tea or what the fuck ever,” JJ starts, and Pope wrestles him into a headlock, noogies him affectionately.“What do you have?” he says conversationally to Kie, who is staring at the two of them and every point of contact between them with steadily growing realisation.Well, fuck.or, Kiara is sort of in love with her next-door neighbour. Unfortunately, she’s also pretty sure he’s dating his roommate.
Relationships: JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks), Sarah Cameron/John B. Routledge
Comments: 158
Kudos: 354
Collections: Jiara Ocean Kiss Soulmate Endgame Excellence (aka a jiara-centric fic collection)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a few quick notes!
> 
> 1) this is literally the stupidest thing i've ever written, it was meant to be a one-shot and then grew legs, i apologise in advance
> 
> 2) updates will be every couple of days! there will only be a few chapters :-]
> 
> 3) if u read my other jiara story some of this first chapter may feel very similar, which is because both of these stories sort of came from the same place, like they were twins from the same zygote that both kind of spawned very different legs. Sorry abt that!! 
> 
> title from "it's nice to have a friend" by taylor swift

“I should have flirted harder with the driver,” Sarah grunts, as she struggles up the stairs. At the other end of the couch, Kie wheezes. “We might have been able – _wheeze_ – to get him into carrying up all our stuff.”

Kie barely manages a grunt in response. She hadn’t properly considered the reality of renting an apartment on the fifth floor, namely stairs, and trying to bring anything over ten pounds up them. If she or Sarah had had the foresight to consider that maybe two twenty-year-old girls couldn’t drag a couch up five storeys she knows they would have not been so eager to get out of the moving van. The men were creepy but at least there were four of them and they had muscles.

“Don’t – talk,” she manages, “preserve – energy.”

“I’ll preserve _you_ ,” Sarah snaps, but then she accidentally slams her elbow into the wall and staggers like she’s just been shot, letting out a spectacular, “ _fuck_!” She drops her end of the couch. “Jesus!”

“Are you okay?” Kie says.

Sarah frowns, shaking off her arm. “Hit my funny bone.”

This is not the first time this has happened so far today: in fact, it’s not even the first time this has happened in this particular stairwell. Kie is the first to assert her independence and strength as a woman and she knows that Sarah is a close second, but as she stares in dismay at the _third floor_ sign on the wall by Sarah’s head, she will admit that she thinks this entire endeavour would benefit tremendously from some manpower. At the rate they’re going, by the time they get this thing to their apartment they’ll be old and grey, and Sarah will have no other nerve endings left to hit.

Sarah seems to have a similar thought process. “This is ridiculous, Kie,” she says, when she catches her staring mournfully at the sign. “We just need to find someone to help us.”

Which, yeah. They’re long past that. “You have any ideas?”

Sarah either misses or ignores the sarcasm, which Kie supposes is probably smart: they’re both grumpy from having to lug this fucking couch up in this heat, and the last thing they need is to start loudly bitching at each other in an echoey stairwell where the entire apartment block can probably hear. “Here’s a wild thought: we knock on a door, and ask for help.”

“Yeah, but who? I don’t want anyone creepy knowing what door number we live in.”

“Just go up to our apartment, and ask the people who live next door. We’ll probably be seeing them around anyway so at least if it’s a creep it’s an unavoidable one. Besides, I was gonna do the whole bake-your-neighbours-something anyway.”

Kie frowns. “That’s usually if someone else is moving in, not you.”

“I’ve learnt friendship is best approached passive-aggressively,” Sarah says, which historically has proven true, mainly because Kie and Sarah became friends because they bitched at each other, before realising it was actually much better if they bitched together. “Come on, go! You look the nicest so if it’s a hot boy or gay girl then we have a more likely chance of being helped.”

Kie squints at her. “Are you pimping me out for manpower?”

“Oh my God, _go_ , Kie!”

Kie goes.

It’s a little disheartening to see how many stairs there are between floors, mainly because with the effort scaling three floors had taken she had assumed there was something of the Burj Khalifa between each level, when actually there were only around two flights. It does mean that she reaches the fifth floor relatively quickly, and bounces over to their door.

It still makes her smile, to know that this is their place. Sure, they’re renting it, and Peterkin, their frowny landlord, looked like she probably also ran an underground fight club in her free time, but it’s _theirs_ , a place they can call home, just the two of them. If you had told Kie at the beginning of freshman year that she’d be renting an apartment with the bitch from her Philosophy and Ethics class, she wouldn’t have believed you. Now look at her.

She smiles at their door, fondly, before turning to the door opposite. 54B, their neighbours. She has no idea about its residents, Peterkin was weirdly cryptic about them, but whoever they are they are playing their music at an _ungodly_ volume. She thinks she can actually feel the floor vibrate beneath her feet in time with the heavy bass.

She decides to risk it, anyway, and steps forward, knocking hard on the door. From inside, all she can hear is the loud pound of music, and the clomping of feet over the top of it. For a few moments she thinks that she didn’t knock loud enough and lifts her hand again, but before she can the door swings open.

A tall boy around her age stands in the doorway. He’s wearing shorts and for some reason a scarf around his neck – in the middle of summer, too, Jesus, what a tool – but more importantly, he has big arms, and isn’t leering at her, which she considers an immense step up.

“Hello!” he says, sounding, for all purposes, like he’s simply thrilled to see her. “What can I do for you?”

The wattage of his smile is so dazzling she is rendered a little speechless for a few moments. “Uh,” is all she can manage, after a pause, before pulling herself together. “Sorry, hi. I’m Kie, me and my friend just moved into the apartment across from you guys.”

“Oh!” The boy looks pleased at this. “Finally, I was wondering when someone was going to move into there, it was feeling a little lonely. It’s good to meet you, neighbour! I’m John B.”

Kie takes into account the open shirt and the windswept hair – Jesus Christ, his hair – and decides not to question the B. Anyone who looks like _that_ is automatically assumed to have an odd initial in their name somewhere. It probably stands for something pretentious like Barrington. “Nice to meet you,” she says.

From inside, someone shouts over the music, “Who is it?”

“Kie from 54A!” John B shouts back. To her, “Is Kie short for something?”

Kie finds he has some gall questioning her on Kie considering his own name, but she humours him anyway. “Kiara, but I prefer Kie.”

John B grins at her like she’s just told him something fantastic. “Do you want to come in?”

Kie is just about to decline, because she didn’t come here for a pow-wow, but before she can say anything he steps inside in a clear invitation for her to follow, and hollers, “JJ! Turn down the music, please!”

The music somehow gets even louder. The floor vibrates beneath Kie’s feet.

John B just rolls his eyes, clearly used to this by now, and turns back to her, ushering her in. “Sorry about the mess, we weren’t expecting company. Do you want anything to drink?”

Kie decides she may as well, and steps inside. It looks exactly how she assumed an apartment inhabited by at least two men would look: pretty minimalistic, just a couch and a TV in the living room, with a connected kitchenette not unlike her own that seems to be mostly populated by cereal and beer. There’s an ashtray on the windowsill and what looks like a melted block of gold next to it – “I found that at a yard sale,” John B tells her, a little proudly, when he catches her looking, as though it’s not the single ugliest thing she thinks she’s ever seen – and socks everywhere. Pretty charming, actually, if she squints. The fact that there’s quite a handsome boy lying on a couch in the middle of it also doesn’t hurt.

“This is Pope,” John B introduces. “Pope, this is our neighbour Kiara, she’s just moved in.”

Pope grins at her. “Glad to see someone finally moved into that apartment. Nice to meet you.” He actually offers her a handshake, which she accepts, trying not to show how impressed she is by that. She respects a good handshake.

“You, too,” she says.

John B beams at her. “Can I get you anything to drink, Kiara? We have water.”

There is a generous pause before Kie realises that that wasn’t a precursor to a list. “Uh, that’s okay,” she says, “I actually just was stopping by because me and my roommate are sort of still in the process of moving in—”

She breaks off when the music raises to an ear-splitting volume, and presses a hand over her ears. John B huffs a little, and shouts, “JJ, seriously! Music, down!”

All at once, the music stops, and Kie almost staggers with it. She hadn’t realised just how loud it was until her ears suddenly stop feeling like she has submerged several hundred feet underwater. Then, moments later, one of the doors down the hallway creaks open, and a shaggy blond head emerges.

“Jesus, stop yelling, JB,” it bitches, “some people are trying to sleep.”

“Sleep!” John B parrots.

“JJ listens to Satanic rock as a lullaby,” Pope tells Kie. She can’t tell if this is a joke.

“It’s not Satanic rock, it’s regular rock, you uncultured fuck,” the blond head says, and then it looks up and reveals itself as the single most attractive man Kie thinks she’s ever seen in her life. He has a pillow crease on his face and his eyes are bleary, looking on all accounts like he genuinely has been asleep. Knuckling at one of his eyes, he shuffles into the living room, shirtless, as Kie is quickly learning is custom of the inhabitants of 54B, hair smushed to one side. Her mouth goes a little dry just at the sight of him, lean and golden and grouchy, barefoot, squinting in the light. He follows Pope’s gaze and for the first time upon walking in, his eyes fall on her, and his face—

Well, he looks like he’s just seen a ghost.

Jesus. Well. That’s always a positive reaction.

“Good of you to grace us with your presence,” John B says, oblivious, and also, “Put a shirt on, we have a guest” like he currently does not also have half of his chest out. “This is Kie, she’s just moved in next door.”

JJ is still staring at her like she’s just crawled out from under the earth and done something unspeakable on the floorboards, but he still manages a stilted, “Hey.” Kie feels her heart sink. Is it something on her face? Why is he looking at her like that? Even Pope seems to have noticed that something is wrong, because he’s giving JJ a funny look. Only John B remains ignorant.

“Sorry, you were saying, Kiara?” he prompts politely.

Kie shakes her head, trying to dislodge all her thoughts about JJ. “Right, sorry,” she says. “Well, me and my friend are sort of in the process of moving in and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind lending us a hand to get our couch upstairs?”

John B brightens, like this is the task he’s been waiting for. “Of course, we’d love to! Wouldn’t we, boys?”

“I actually have something to do,” JJ starts, but John B waves him off.

“Nonsense, it’s the neighbourly thing to do!”

“Yeah, JJ,” Pope says with a grin, “don’t you want to be _neighbourly_?”

“Fuck off,” JJ says. He throws his arms up. “Fine, whatever, I’ll help.”

“Excuse JJ,” John B tells her lowly, as he passes her to the doorway, “he’s always grumpy in the mornings.” For her own sake, Kie decides not to tell him that it’s just passed one in the afternoon. “He’s nice once you get to know him.”

Kie just nods. She’s learnt over time that not everyone is going to like her; she knows she’s not exactly the most digestible of people, a little barbed, with a bit of a resting bitch face, and apparently her socialist leanings aren’t exactly as subtle as she tries to make them. But still, having the single most attractive boy she thinks she’s ever set eyes on not even dignify her with a smile—well, it stings a little. It’s not as though she expected for their eyes to meet and sparks to fly or whatever, even just a mere notion of friendship would’ve been nice. She hasn’t even gotten around to the socialism and he’s already rejected her.

Well, whatever. She sets her shoulders back as she leads the boys down the stairs. If JJ is going to insist on being a dick, she’s not going to indulge him.

Sarah is leaning against the wall on her phone when they finally round on her, and when she hears them coming she looks up. “Oh, finally,” she says. “I was waiting forev—” Then her eyes go a little wide and her voice peters off as she stares at something over Kie’s shoulder. When Kie glances back, alarmed, all she sees is John B, who is also staring like he’s just discovered nirvana.

“Hi,” Sarah breathes, and when Kie looks back at her she’s hurriedly tucking her flyaways behind her ears, straightening her shirt. Of fucking course. Kie knew Sarah wasn’t watching 90210 for its great plot – she has a prep kink. She _knew_ it. Unfortunately, by the equally as breathy, “Hey,” from John B, Kie doesn’t think this is going to be dropped anytime soon.

“Sarah,” Kie says, “these our neighbours, John B, JJ and Pope.”

“John B,” John says, sort of dazedly, and reaches forward to shake Sarah’s hand. Sarah sort of bobs in a half-curtsey as she accepts it, and Jesus, this is the best day _ever_. Kie’s fodder for blackmail is reaching exponential proportions.

“Sarah,” Sarah manages. “Hi.”

There is a generous pause as they both stare in each other’s eyes, still holding hands, before Pope clears his throat and elbows his way through, offering his own hand. “Pope,” he introduces, and Sarah comes out of her John B-inspired reverie with a jerk. “You guys needed help with the sofa?”

“Right!” Sarah blinks a little, like she’s recalibrating. Kie wants to poke fun but she sees John B in her peripheral doing the exact same. “Yes, the couch. Thank you so much.”

“We’ve been here for a while,” Kie admits, as John B and JJ position themselves either end of the couch. “You guys are being a huge help.”

Between them, they lift it almost effortlessly. Kie twitches just a little. A dick JJ may be, but he has pretty beautiful biceps. As they start to move, Sarah comes down to stand next to Kie and Pope, and watches as they disappear around the bend in the stairwell.

As soon as they’re out of earshot, Kie hisses, “Get it together.”

“Kie,” Sarah says desperately, “he’s wearing flip-flops.”

Christ, and she didn’t even see that. “You are being embarrassing.”

“His bone structure,” Sarah bemoans, “I think I saw God.”

Pope laughs, and they both start a little. Kie had half-forgotten he was there. By the way Sarah goes scarlet she had, too. “Tell John B that to his face,” he says, “I think he’ll hyperventilate.” Sarah looks pleased. “Come on.”

As they ascend, Pope starts asking them questions about themselves, _where did you guys move from?, are you still in school?, me too, what are you studying?, that’s so cool!,_ sounding for all purposes genuinely interested in the answers. Kie immediately takes a liking to Pope – he’s warm, friendly, and easy to talk to. She’s pleased to find he’s a little nerdy as well, “I’m on a scholarship, as well, I’m pretty good with numbers”, and by the time they reach the third floor Kie is pretty sure they’ve just secured their first friend.

“Thank you so much,” Sarah says to John B and JJ, as she stands outside their front door. “This really means a lot.”

“No problem!” John B says. “Do you need any help bringing it in?”

Probably not, it seems reasonably easy to move when the movement in question is horizontal, but Kie knows Sarah shares her reluctance to let these three well-muscled boys away so quickly. “If it’s not too much hassle?” Sarah says.

“Of course not!” says John B.

Kie unlocks the door and holds it open as John B and Pope carry the couch through, JJ following with his hands in his pockets. They haven’t properly had time to unpack yet, still trying to adjust to moving into a place of their own for the first time. There are boxes everywhere, most sealed, but some split open like bombs, clothes and trinkets strewn across the floor. Sarah’s already unloaded all of her pot plants along the windowsill, because obviously her priorities are in check, and they’ve begun to tack a few of their old pictures to the walls, but aside from the huge furniture pieces like the beds and Kie’s armchair, everything is pretty much in disarray.

“Cool place,” Pope says, “it’s like ours but mirrored!”

“Which rooms are yours?” Kie says.

Pope thinks for a few moments, brow furrowed, as he presumably tries to flip their floorplan. “Pretty sure that one’s mine and JJ’s – right, JJ?”

“Probably,” JJ says.

“And that’s John B’s,” Pope says, pointing to the smaller of the two. Probably Kie’s, if Sarah’s extensive amount of clothing has any say in the matter.

“That’s so cool,” Sarah says, though probably mainly because her lizard brain caught ‘John B’ and ‘bedroom’. Not that Kie has a leg to stand on, either, not when she felt her tummy do something at the sound of JJ’s voice. She never thought she cared much about the sound of voices, until _that_. Then Sarah hits her forehead with her palm. “Sorry, we’re being terrible hosts. Do you guys want anything to drink? We have tea, or coffee, if you want.”

“Actually—” JJ starts, but John B cuts him off with an enthusiastic, “I’d love some coffee, if you have any!”

“Tea for me, please,” Pope says. “JJ?”

“I’m fine,” JJ says.

Pope rolls his eyes. “He wants a coffee,” he tells Kie. “He’s just grumpy.”

“Fuck you, I’m not grumpy,” JJ says.

Pope just laughs, throws an arm around his shoulders. “Whatever you say, baby.”

Kie feels the butterflies in her stomach turn to dust.

“Just because I don’t drink your girly tea or what the fuck ever,” JJ starts, and Pope wrestles him into a headlock, noogies him affectionately.

“What do you have?” he says conversationally to Kie, who is staring at the two of them and every point of contact between them with steadily growing realisation.

Well, _fuck_.

Somehow, her brain seems to register the question, because distantly she’s aware of herself rattling off all the teas they have, _chamomile, green, white, that’s pretty much it_ , and then Pope says, “What do you suggest?” and sounds like he actually wants to know the answer, like he actually cares about her opinion on tea, so she says, “I like white” and Pope grins at her and says, “White tea it is!” but all she can focus on is the arm JJ has around his waist as he tries to prise free, and then the way it stays when he manages it.

Undeterred, Pope laughs again and reels him in for a peck against the temple, and JJ rolls his eyes and shoves at him, but they’re both laughing, and when Pope swings back they end up even closer before, the tops of their shoes and their elbows touching.

Well. That’s that, then.

The hits just keep coming. She comes across the singular most beautiful boy she has ever seen, a boy who looks like summer with blue eyes like fucking oceans and a dumbass name that probably stands for something preppy and douchey like Jameson Johnson, and he’s an asshole. And that’s okay, she can navigate that, she can also be a bit of an asshole too, but then he’s also taken, and not only that but by another boy. A boy she can’t even bring herself to dislike, either, she thinks grouchily, as she watches them rib each other about tea, because Pope has been nothing but kind to her. And then across the room Sarah and John B are giving each other soppy moon eyes and that’s just fucking her luck, isn’t it, that she moves across the hall from three handsome boys and two of them are gay for each other and the third ends up with her best friend.

Her _luck_. She wants to kick fate or whatever right in its smug face.

She doesn’t do that, though. Instead, she just goes into the kitchen and switches on the kettle and tries not to sigh. He’s just one cute boy.

*

Later that night, once the boys have gone home, and Sarah and Kie are piled on Sarah’s bed watching Netflix, Sarah says, “They were nice.”

“Yeah, they were.”

“I think I like John B,” Sarah confesses like it’s a secret, as though she hadn’t been seconds away from spraying the living room like a cat in heat. Kie just snorts and helps herself to some ice cream.

“Trust me, I know.”

“How cosy would it be, if we started dating the boys across the hall? Me with John B, and you with either Pope or JJ. Or both.”

Kie just sighs. “I think Pope and JJ are a thing.”

“Really?” But Sarah is even deflating as she says it. “You know, I think you’re right. They were very touchy-feely. Guess that sort of sucks. They were both pretty hot.”

“Whatever,” Kie says. “I don’t need a boyfriend.”

“Of course not,” Sarah agrees. She raises a spoon. “Here’s to us finding love – or not finding love.”

“I’ll toast you to that,” Kie says, and clinks their spoons together, trying not to think about JJ’s eyes.

*

The next morning is a rude jerk back to reality from the reverie of renting a place for the first time. Unfortunately, time doesn’t seem content to slow down and allow Kie to get used to living in her own space, away from the crush of student living and communal showers and the girl from down the hall who would slip a biweekly Justin Timberlake update pamphlet through her door, and so when she wakes up the next morning it’s straight back to real life. Sarah, the lucky bitch, doesn’t have any classes today, though through the wall Kie can hear that she’s already awake when her alarm goes off, doing yoga or whatever other zen thing that involves birth noises.

Kie gets dressed as quietly as she can as to not disturb her, grabs a banana from their meagre food supplies in the kitchen, and is out the door within ten minutes. She peels the banana as she heads down the stairs, and then to her surprise bumps into John B in the stairwell.

He also looks a little surprised to see her, but pleasantly so. “Morning, neighbour!” he says. At this point she thinks he’s just perpetually in a good mood. There are worse qualities, she supposes, as she squints at his bright smile. Way too early for so much positivity. “Didn’t expect to see you up at this time.”

“I’ve got a 9am.”

He pulls an appropriate _yikes_ face. “Ouch.”

“Yeah, I know.” For the first time she notices his get-up, which consists of a tank and shorts. Initially she’d thought that the neck scarf had been the main factor in making him look like a hipster-prep but even without it she can’t stop picturing him smoking oregano in a man bun. “Going on a run?”

He jogs a little on the spot, rolling his shoulders. “Yeah, I try to every morning. Starts my day off right, you know? Aligns my chakras.”

Jesus, he and Sarah could not be more perfect for each other. “Are they feeling... unaligned?”

John B laughs. “Something like that. Do you want to grab a coffee before your first class?”

Actually, that wouldn’t sound half bad, but Kie can’t resist. “Are your sure your chakras can withstand caffeine this early?”

John B grins, a little guiltily. “Probably not, but it’s a hard habit to kick. Besides, I do, uh.” He coughs, suddenly looking a little embarrassed. “Have ulterior motives.”

Kie raises an eyebrow, amused. “Oh, yeah?”

By now, they’ve reached the bottom of the stairs, and there’s a slight pause in the conversation as they push through the doors and step outside, blinking the spots out of their vision in the bright sunshine. Kie fumbles around in her bag for her sunglasses, and next to her she is vaguely aware of John B doing the same, though she notes with amusement that his are hanging from the neck of his shirt, because where else would they be?

Now that her eyes have adjusted, she can see that John B still looks a little flustered, so she takes a risk and gently bumps their arms together. “What’s up?”

“Your friend Sarah,” he says.

Ah. “What about her?” Kie says, purposely obtuse.

“Well.” John B goes a little pink. “What’s she like?”

“Do you like Sarah?”

“I think so.” John B heaves a sigh. “And I know we don’t know each other that yet but even just last night I really felt like we had synergy, you know, and also of course she’s absolutely gorgeous, that doesn’t hurt either, but I don’t want the relationship just to be formed on the basis of surface-level attraction—”

“Jesus!” Kie lets out a laugh. “Slow your roll, Romeo.”

John B blushes. “Sorry.”

Oh, this is too fun. She should meddle in love lives more often: there is nothing like this sort of high from lording information like this other people’s heads. Granted, she doesn’t know a lot about John B, other than that he has questionable fashion sense and is probably also the owner of the incense she’d seen on the windowsill in 54B, but he’s caused Sarah to be more embarrassing in the span of a few minutes than Kie has ever managed under the influence of alcohol, which puts him pretty high in her books already.

“What do you want to know about her?”

“I don’t know,” John B says, “did she seem... interested in me?”

Kie thinks back to the half an hour she was subjected to about his eyelashes alone. “You could say that.”

He immediately turns to her. “What do you mean? Did she talk about me after?”

“Dude,” Kie says, with a laugh, “ask her yourself! It’s not really my place to say but she seemed really interested in you, too.”

John B considers this, looking pleased. They walk for a few more moments in silence before he says, “Would that be... okay?”

“Would what be okay?”

“If I asked her out.”

“Why would that affect me?”

“Well, you’re her friend.”

Despite herself, Kie can’t stop the small smile. “Are you asking me for my permission?” He is too cute.

“I trust you have her best intentions at heart!” John B protests, but the tips of his ears are pink. She takes pity on him, and bumps their shoulders together.

“Of course you can ask her out. You seem like a good guy.”

That makes John B smile the widest he has all morning. “You as well, Kiara. You know, I’m glad you both moved in. 54A was getting lonely without anyone living there, and you both seem like really nice people.”

“You’re just saying that because you think Sarah’s pretty.”

She revels in the embarrassed splutter he lets out. “Well—only partially! I think you’re pretty too, of course,” he adds, and Kie rolls her eyes. “But I’m being serious. I think we’re all going to be good friends.”

And Kie would make fun of him, but privately she hopes so, too. Aside from JJ, who acted like the world’s biggest ass for seemingly no reason, Pope and John B both seem perfectly lovely. And for all her joking, she really does think that John B would be a good fit for Sarah.

“Me, too,” she says, and they both smile at each other. “Okay, let’s hurry, I’ve got half an hour until the lecture starts.”

They enter into the coffee shop, which is already filled with other bleary-eyed students falling asleep into their laptops. Kie spots a few girls from her social sciences seminar, and nods at them in acknowledgement as they enter; in comparison, John B greets every table they pass, because he seemingly knows everyone. She is wholly unsurprised, mainly because she’s sure John B could befriend a brick wall with his charm and swoopy hair, and so she indulges him when he introduces her as “Kiara, my next-door-neighbour!” and dutifully says hello.

What does surprise her, however, is when they reach the front of the line, and she looks up to find that the barista is none other than fucking _JJ_.

“ _JJ_?” she says.

JJ looks equally as struck to see her, blue eyes wide, his mouth open in what looks like the beginning of a canned greeting. “Kie,” he says. His eyes flicker to John B and he does something with his eyebrows, like he’s trying to confer with him telepathically. John B remains oblivious, however, and simply beams at him across the counter.

“Morning, man!” he says.

“Hey,” JJ says. “Uh, hey, Kie.”

At least he doesn’t look like he’s swallowing bile this time. “Hey,” she says. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

John B looks pleased that they’re holding a civil conversation, which she supposes makes two of them: and judging by the way JJ’s face does something weird at that, it’s _only_ the two of them. “Uh, yeah,” he says. “For a few months.”

A few months? How has Kie not known? She comes here most mornings. She’s sure she would have noticed if her barista looked like JJ.

“Oh,” is all she can find to say. JJ just nods.

John B glances between them, as if expecting them to continue speaking; however, when it becomes clear that the conversation is truly over, he claps his hands together. “Well,” he says, “let’s order! What’s good?”

“You should really learn the art of having one order, man,” JJ says, and Kie is struck by just how different he is when he’s not looking at her like she has just mortally wounded him. He’s actually—sort of playful, when talking to John B. She feels something like irritation begin to tickle the back of her mind just at the sight of it. Where the fuck is this for _her_? Why does she get surly grumpy JJ?

John B grins at him. “That ruins the fun.”

“Of what, being a decent customer? Not holding up the line?”

“I keep you on your toes.”

JJ rolls his eyes. “What do you want, man?”

John B makes a show of reading the board behind his head. On anyone else it would look performative, like they’re only doing it to get a rise, but John B seems to genuinely be interested in what offers are on. After a few moments, he hums thoughtfully, and says, “I think I’ll go with a vanilla latte today.”

JJ plugs it into the machine, and then turns to Kie. “White tea?”

Her heart pounds. What? “You... know my order?” she says.

JJ’s eyes go wide, and he coughs, ears red. “Uh, yeah,” he mutters. “It’s Pope’s new favourite, so...”

Right. Kie’s heart comes plummeting back down to earth with a crash. Pope. JJ’s boyfriend. “Ah,” she says. “Right.”

JJ just nods.

“How hard would I have to twist your arm for you to give me some biscotti?” John B says.

JJ raises his eyebrows. “Unless you’re twisting it towards your wallet, think again.”

“What about bro benefits?”

“Bro benefits? What the fuck are you on about?”

“I’m being nice by not demanding you give me a discount.”

JJ rolls his eyes. “Fuck off, man, there are other customers.” But he smiles as he says it, and when John B holds his fist out, he bumps it. Then he glances at Kie, and says, “Uh, nice seeing you, Kie.”

She’s a little surprised by this, only because she’s sure if it hadn’t been for John B they would have stood in silence (and she means it literally, because he apparently knows her order because it’s the same as his boyfriend’s fuck fuck _fuck_ ), but the slightly awkward smile he’s giving her feels like an acknowledge of his previous assholery, like he’s aware that things are weird between them and he’s in the least a little regretful, which she supposes she can appreciate.

Though, she’s also aware that the only thing keeping her creepy crush at bay _was_ his assholery, so she’s pretty afraid of what kind of floodgates are going to open once he starts being actually nice to her – but one step at a time, she supposes.

“You, too,” she risks, and it’s worth the small, close-lipped smile she gets in return.

John B bids him a farewell and they step around to the end of the counter, where by now their drinks are sitting for them. They pick them up and head for the door, John B doing one last round of goodbyes to the other patrons, and step outside.

“You know,” he says, as Kie takes a first tentative sip from her cup, “I think he likes you.”

Kie ensuing snort almost upsets her tea. “Really?” she says. “And what gave that away?”

He seems to pick up on her sarcasm, because he turns baleful eyes on her. “I know he was a bit of a dick the first time we met, and I’m really sorry about that.”

“I don’t care if you’re sorry, you did nothing wrong. He’s the one who needs to apologise.”

“Don’t worry, Pope and I had a firm word with him afterward. I’m sure it’ll happen soon. A few things were put into clarity.”

“Like what, he’s an asshole just on instinct to people beginning with K?”

“He’s an acquired taste,” John B says, which seems the closest he’s willing to come to acknowledging JJ’s fucking grouchiness. “But I think he does actually quite like you.”

Kie glances at him. “And how do you know that?”

“Well, he remembered your order, didn’t he?”

She presses her lips together.

“JJ doesn’t like very many people,” John B says. “So he’s also got a bit of a strange way of showing it. But he’s one of the most loyal dudes I’ve ever known. This one time, this guy tried to start shit with Pope, for whatever reason, and Christ, you should’ve seen the way JJ flew in. Bam, bam, blood everywhere.”

Oh, how Kie loves the hypermasculine displays of violence of men. “Charming.”

John B laughs a little, seemingly having caught onto her distaste. “Okay, maybe bad example, but really, though. Just give him a while, he’ll start visibly showing it.” By now, they’ve reached the edge of campus, where they’ll have to split, so Kie can go to her class and John B can go and yodel at nature, or whatever he does. Before they do, however, he bumps their shoulders. “And for what it’s worth?” he says. “I think you guys would make a great pair.”

She watches his retreating back sourly.

 _Fuck you, universe_ , she thinks. _Fuck. You._


	2. Chapter 2

“You know,” Kie says, as she surveys the nuclear bombsite that is Sarah’s room, “if you keep abusing our emergency code I’m eventually going to stop responding to it.”

From where she’s half buried in a pile of clothes, Sarah makes a despondent noise. “I didn’t abuse it, this is an emergency.”

“Clearly,” Kie says. “What happened?”

“John B asked me out!”

Kie frowns. “And that’s an... emergency?”

“Yes!” Sarah sits up and stares at her imploringly, eyes wide. “I’m freaking out!”

Ah, so it’s _this_ sort of emergency. “Why? You like him, don’t you?”

Sarah gives her a look like she’s stupid, which Kie finds takes some nerve considering she is sitting in surrounded by the spilt guts of her wardrobe. “That’s exactly why I’m freaking out! I really want this to go well but I can’t even decide what to wear, and that should be the last of my concerns.” She makes a miserable sound and puts her head in her hands. “I have literally spent the last hour shaving every single inch of my body on the off-chance that we end up having sex. Why am I so pathetic?”

“Okay, first off,” Kie interjects, “you’re not pathetic.” Sarah gives her a half-hearted glare. “Maybe a little. But evidently John B’s into that or he wouldn’t have asked you out.”

“I guess,” Sarah says dubiously.

Kie takes a step in and almost goes flying on a bralette. “Look, you’re overthinking this. John B literally lives next door to us, he’s seen us both in pajamas covered in zit cream. I’m pretty sure you could show up in a potato sack and he’d still think you’re smoking. Put on a nice dress and comb your hair and you should be fine.”

Sarah still looks a little hesitant, but her expression is thoughtful. “You think so?”

“I know so,” Kie says. “Okay? Stop freaking out. It’ll be fine.” She hefts her bag. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to continue this essay due next week. Will you survive getting changed or do you need help with that, too?”

“Fuck _off_ ,” Sarah whines, “I just want this to go well!”

“And it _will_ , you big drama queen. I’ll be on the couch.”

Sarah flips her off half-heartedly as she leaves, and Kie only lets her smile show once she’s safely out of view. Despite all her teasing, she’s glad John B managed to work up the nerve to ask out Sarah, though she has to admit that it’s very selfless of her, because if Sarah with a crush is this bad she can’t even imagine the nightmare of Sarah in love (with an enabling boyfriend, too, Jesus). Kie indulges herself for a few moments in her epic matchmaking skills as she peruses the kitchen for food, only producing what looks like a wizened carrot, ick, before she heads into the living room and has to switch back into her studying headspace. It’s an interesting enough essay, she supposes, but she’s already been at it for hours and she’s only just managed to scrape the halfway mark for the word count.

Nonetheless, she settles herself down on the couch, plugs in her headphones, and starts to write. She’s simply listening to a string of piano music so when Sarah comes into the room wearing a white sundress, she honestly can’t say how long it’s been. Sarah may have picked herself up off her bed immediately and sensibly chosen an outfit or wallowed for another half an hour. (Knowing Sarah and her level of drama, it’s probably the latter. Kie has a sneaking suspicion she did theatre in high school at some point: no one develops this sort of melodrama without some nurturing.)

“Well?” Sarah says, with a spin. “Does this look good?”

“You know you look good,” Kie tells her. “Here, come—” And when she bends closer Kie smooths down her hair where it was frizzing up by her ear. “There, perfect.”

Sarah does another few twirls. “You think he’ll like it?”

“Definitely. What time is he picking you up?”

“In, like, seven minutes, so you’re gonna have to leave.”

And, what?

“Uh,” Kie says, “no?”

“No?”

“Why do I have to leave?”

Sarah gives her a look like she’s insane. “What if we end up coming back?”

“Then go to his apartment?”

“What if the boys are there?”

Kie stares at her. “You’re not serious.”

“Please?” And then Sarah laces her fingers under her chin and turns on the fucking puppy eyes, and _Jesus_ , as if anyone can say no to that. “You know I wouldn’t ask unless it was important to me. I’ll do anything!”

Jesus fucking Christ. Karma had better be reimbursing her handsomely.

“Okay, _fine_ ,” Kie says reluctantly, and Sarah’s face splits into a grin. Ugh, the devious bitch, she knew what she was doing. If she weren’t so irritated she’d be kind of impressed. “Fine, whatever, I’ll clear out.” She points at her. “But you owe me.”

Sarah’s already nodding. “Absolutely, of course, anything you need, I just, I think he’s due in around five minutes now and—”

“Okay, okay, I get the hint.” Kie stands and gathers all her things, stuffing them back in her bag. Next to her, Sarah vibrates with apprehension, bouncing on the balls of her feet, and when she catches her gaze she offers her a nervous, excited smile that has Kie’s insides melting. Oh, Jesus, like she can be mad at that. She drops her bag and pulls her into a one-armed hug, and Sarah melts against her, shoving her nose into her neck. “You’ll be great, girl, okay? Just breathe.”

“Just breathe,” Sarah repeats, when she emerges. She smiles at her again, and this time it’s not as edged in anxiety. “Okay, quickly now, I don’t know when he’s getting here.”

Kie obediently packs up the last of her stuff and moves towards the door, barely managing to cram her feet in her shoes before Sarah literally pushes her out and slams it shut behind her. For a few moments Kie just stands there in shocked silence, her feet still hanging half out of her sneakers.

“Well, fuck you too,” she says to the door.

She decides just to head back to campus and hang out in the library. It’s relatively quiet and she always gets her work done, and if worst comes to worst and John B’s libido is seemingly endless, there’s a vending machine that’s always full of decent snacks that she can have for dinner. Mind made up, she worms her feet properly into her shoes, and then heads off.

Thankfully, the library is pretty empty when she arrives, only a few late-afternoon stragglers buried in their books with their headphones in. Kie is content just to edge past and find a spare table, preferably one tucked under a window, so she can feel the sun on her face, when then from behind her she hears, “Kie?”

Oh, Christ.

Pope.

The last person she wants to see.

Since what she’s taken to referring to as “the coffee shop incident”, the last thing she’s been trying to do these past few days is think about JJ and his fucking eyes, or the golden line of his throat that looks like it would be warm to the touch. (Clearly, it’s going well.) And now she’s come face to face with his boyfriend with no means of escape.

Can Pope tell that she’s got a gross, creepy crush on his boyfriend? His voice doesn’t seem to be particularly angry or under-handed, in fact he sounds sort of pleased to see her. Fuck, why is he so _likeable_? She mouths, “Fuck my life” to herself, and then pastes on a smile and turns around.

“Pope,” she says. “Hey.”

Pope is smiling at her, with no traces of anything malicious in his face. Okay, so he can’t tell. Let’s keep it that way, she thinks, as he beckons her over, and she reluctantly approaches.

“Sorry for shouting, I wasn’t sure if it was you or not,” Pope says. He gestures to the seat next to him. “Do you want to sit? Let me just move my stuff—” Before she can even answer, he’s already sliding his textbooks across the table to make room for her. Declining now would just be rude, especially with how he’s smiling at her, so tries for a smile back and slides into the chair.

“Thanks,” she says.

“No problem. What are neighbours for?” He grins at her, and then nudges a half-open bag of chips towards her. “Want some?”

“I’m good.”

“Fair enough, they’re kind of shit.” Pope eats one anyway. “I haven’t seen you around here before, do you normally come to the library?”

“Not really, just if I need to work.”

“Ah.” He pulls a sympathetic face. “Exam?”

“Sexiled, actually.”

His face splits into a grin. “Dude, me too! High five.” Slightly put-out, she hits her hand against his. She hadn’t realised high-fives were still a thing that people were doing past 2015. “The big Sarah and John B date. How was Sarah dealing? Because if it was anywhere near the levels of theatre that John B was performing then I feel sorry for you.”

This is good, easy territory. “Don’t even get me started,” she says, with an eye-roll. “She used our SOS code that we use for emergencies to bring me from the lab to our apartment. I thought someone had broken in.”

“Okay, but I raise you: John B changing his outfit six times. I counted.”

“Six?”

“And they weren’t even that different. They were all the same variation of shorts and open shirt.” Pope sighs a little. “I tried to get him to ditch the neck scarf but it’s like that thing is surgically attached. I think his head will fall off if he isn’t wearing one.”

Kie snorts. “I wouldn’t worry too much. Pretty sure Sarah accepted the date on behalf of the scarf alone.”

Pope barks out a laugh. “Well, it’s probably for the best we escaped while we could, then. Cheers to that?”

Kie doesn’t have a drink, so she bumps her fist against his proffered can of Monster. The smile on his face is definitely worth it.

She watches him as he takes a long swig, and then turns back to his laptop, absently reading over whatever is on the screen. She can feel a question tickle in the back of her mind. Because she’s always been glutton for punishment, she broaches hesitantly, “Where’s JJ?”

Pope glances at her with a fond look on his face. “Honestly, who knows,” he says. “Probably still back at the apartment. The last time I saw him he was dead to the world in bed.”

Kie raises her eyebrows. “John B didn’t try kick him out too?”

“No, he tried, but you can’t really ever get JJ to _do_ anything he doesn’t want to.” He rolls his eyes affectionately. “The bastard, he could probably sleep through an earthquake, I think he’ll be fine.”

Kie exhales a laugh, half to be polite, and looks down at her textbook, hoping it’s a clear end to the conversation. She’d only brought him up because clearly she’s a sadist, but honestly, the last thing she wants to do right now is discuss JJ with JJ’s boyfriend. Unfortunately, Pope doesn’t seem to pick up on that.

“ _So_ ,” he broaches, and when Kie looks up he’s pushed his laptop back, arms folded on the table in front of him. “What do you think of JJ?”

 _Tread carefully_ , she tells herself. “He seems cool,” she says.

Pope looks almost cautiously hopeful at that. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, you know.” Pope clearly does not know, because the expectant look he’s giving her suggests that he’s not willing to drop this just yet. _God, smite me now_ , she thinks. Why the fuck does Pope want her opinion on his own boyfriend? This is probably just the bad karma she’s got saved up from that one time she finished Sarah’s mascara and didn’t tell her. “I didn’t know he worked at The Wreck.”

Pope grins. “Yeah, for months now. He’s really passionate about coffee.” Then he gives her a significant look, which she refuses to decipher. Sex jokes, no thank _you_.

“I guess it’s good that he works at a coffee shop then,” she says, in an attempt at humour.

Pope is nice enough to laugh. “Yeah, sure is. Listen, I know that you guys didn’t get off to the best start—”

Oh, Jesus.

“But I think he’s really sorry about it,” he continues. “He was just having a bad day. He’s a really good guy once you get to know him. You know this one time this guy tried to start shit with me and he, like, threw himself in there. Bam, bam, blood everywhere.”

“Right.”

“I think you just need to give him another chance. It would be really nice if we could all be friends, us five.”

“He just needs to apologise,” she says, “or... I don’t know. Acknowledge my existence?”

Pope winces. “Yeah, he’s—sort of shit at that. Sorry.”

She just sighs. “It’s whatever. Don’t worry.”

“No, but I do.” And why does he have to sound so fucking _earnest_? “I think you’d make a really good pair, the two of you, and... I don’t know, I feel kind of sad that you haven’t gotten on. Honestly, he’s just—there’s no one I trust more than him, you know?”

Something tugs in the recesses of her ribcage. He speaks of him so kindly, so fondly, that she feels he heart clench. She’s long since started attempting to forget about JJ, or in the least JJ as a unit with Pope, but this sort of adoration almost chokes her, with just how genuinely Pope seems to mean it. In any case, she hopes she can eventually find something like that.

She almost doesn’t want to ask, but she can see that Pope is almost waiting for it, so she clears her throat. “How did you guys, um...” Her throat tightens a little, and she coughs, but he seems to understand. He smiles, nostalgically.

“Man, I can’t remember.” He tips his head to the side, taps his pen against his notebook. “It’s sort of always felt like we’ve had each other, you know? Like, I don’t really know when we went from friends to... more.” He still frowns, though, like he’s trying to pinpoint an exact date. “Have... any of the boys mentioned JJ’s dad before?”

“JJ’s dad?” Kie frowns. “No, I don’t think so.”

Pope shrugs. “I didn’t think so, it’s always a weird subject. Well, John B and I both had our fair portion of shit, you know? John B was in foster care and my parents—well, comparatively, they were saints, but a lot of expectation for me to do well, you know? But JJ, Christ, JJ had it bad.” Pope sighs. “You know his dad used to hit him?”

Kie feels the blood drain from the face. “Shit.”

“Yeah, I know. Awful, isn’t it? He tried to hide it from us for the longest time, always wore long-sleeved shirts and sweaters in the summer, joined a sports team to have an excuse to stay away from home and also explain the bruises, and he’d always sleep over at our houses. We didn’t really think much of it until we were staying the night at John B’s foster parents – the best people, by the way, the reason he’s so fucking cheerful now is probably all to do with how great they were – and he just burst and told us everything, just crying, about how he couldn’t go home. It was fucking awful, man, I don’t think we’d ever seen him cry before.”

“Jesus.” Kie’s mind spins. Holy shit. “What did you do?”

“Well, he obviously wasn’t going back. We managed to twist a few arms in Child Services, and he ended up moving in with me and my folks. And then...” Pope sighs, but this one is less resigned, less miserable, more almost fond. “Well, I don’t know. That’s sort of cemented it, you know? Like, we’d always been close, but that night... I don’t know. It was sort of more than friends, you know? Closer than that.”

“Yeah,” Kie says, through the lump in her throat. “Jesus, wow. I’m—glad you managed to get that sorted out.”

“He doesn’t really like to talk about,” Pope confesses. “I probably shouldn’t have even told you. But I have a feeling you guys will be around for a while, so I guess it was sooner rather than later.”

And how can she fucking hate him now? She knew from the first moment Pope opened his mouth and offered a handshake that she was going to have a tough time finding anything concrete to dislike when she found out that he’d bagged the single most attractive man she’d ever seen, but now? Jesus, she doesn’t think she can ever think about JJ’s eyes in good conscience ever again. She’d never entertained the idea of stealing JJ from Pope – more like falling into an alternate universe where JJ was heterosexual – but now she feels guilty even about that. They’ve been through and done so much for each other, and just in the way Pope speaks about him... Yeah, she never even had a fighting chance.

“Well, I appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me that,” she says honestly. “I can’t even imagine what that must’ve been like.”

“Yeah, it was tough. But we’ve all come out better people, so.” Pope shrugs. “Give JJ a chance, yeah?”

She can’t help herself. “You think I can stay mad at him after you’ve told me that?”

It’s almost comical, the way Pope’s eyes bug out. “Oh fuck, I wasn’t trying—”

She cuts him off with a laugh. “Don’t worry, I know.”

“That wasn’t me trying to, like, guilt you into forgiving him,” Pope says earnestly. “Like, he was definitely a dick. But there are also just other layers to him, you know? Like an onion. Onions—"

“Don’t do the Shrek voice,” she says.

“—have layers,” Pope finishes, though in an American accent. “Come on, I had to.”

“You really didn’t.”

“It’s a talent,” this time in Scottish, and they both cringe. “Yeah, you’re right, Jesus. Never doing that again. Layers like a cake? Or a lasagne?”

Kie frowns. “Are you comparing JJ to a lasagne?”

“Well, they’re both pretty delicious,” he says, with a wink, and Kie rolls her eyes to cover the pounding in her chest. She must have killed a man in her past life for this to be her reality. Pope does not need to know just how delicious she finds his boyfriend. “Seriously though, just give him time? He’s a stubborn bastard when he wants to be. Hence why he’s probably stuck listening to John B and Sarah have sex right now.”

Despite herself, Kie huffs out a laugh at that, imagining him holed up in his room unable to leave as they make out on the couch. Pope must catch her line of thinking because he grins, a little hopefully.

“Will you?” he says.

Kie sighs. “Okay,” she allows. “I’ll give him another chance.”

Pope smiles at her. “That’s good,” he says, and for a few moments they just look at each other, and Kie stares into his earnest brown eyes and thinks if he knew just how much she thought about JJ he would never speak to her ever again, and she fucking hates herself for it. Then, after a few moments, he looks back down at his laptop with a grin, and shoots her an impish grin. “Now, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about Gamma matrices, would you?”

*

By the time Kie gets the all-clear text from Sarah, it’s passed eight pm and she’s fucking starving. Earlier she and Pope had ransacked the vending machine (she’d even managed to impress him with her epic hairpin-in-slot trick, which snagged them an extra soda and bag of chips) but she’s still hungry, so they both pretty quickly pack up their things and head to the apartment block.

“Whose apartment do you think they fucked in?” Pope says, as they approach their doors. “I bet you it was ours.”

“Yours?” Kie snorts. “No, it was definitely ours. Sarah was practically spraying the living room when I left, there’s no way John B was going to open the door and not have her ambush him.”

“Okay, but John B was in the middle of cooking her a meal when I left, and he makes a pretty fuckin’ good dinner.”

Kie raises an eyebrow. “You think his cooking skills are that good it can get him laid?”

“Uh, even _I’d_ fuck him if he cooked me food like that. They absolutely had sex in our apartment.”

“You wanna bet?”

“Ten dollars.”

“Deal.”

They shake on it.

“Prepare,” Kie says, when she reaches her door. She pulls out her key and unlocks the door, and then, before she can lose the nerve, pulls it open. Predictably, John B and Sarah are there, making out on the sofa – thankfully, fully-clothed – and Kie is triumphant for all of three seconds until she properly comprehends that they are practically humping each other on a piece of furniture she regularly uses.

“I thought you said the coast was clear,” she says into the apartment, amused, half to be a dick, and Sarah and John B spring apart like they’ve both been struck with electricity. John B lands on his ass and Sarah sits up, wiping her mouth, like she’s trying to hide the fact that not three seconds each other they were literally on top of each other.

“Kie!” she squeaks. “I wasn’t expecting you to get back so soon.”

“You were the one who texted me to come home.”

“Yes, but, I was hoping you’d read the subliminal message in that.”

“Which is?”

“Another hour?”

“I’m not psychic,” Kie says. To John B, “hello.”

“Evening, Kie,” he croaks. “Good night?”

“Clearly not as good as yours,” she says, and he actually preens. Sarah catches him and says, “Don’t smile about that.”

“Sorry,” he says, not looking particularly sorry, and when Sarah vaults off the couch and starts straightening her dress he gives Kie a goofy grin and thumbs-up. He’s so cute. Kie wants to be irritated at the gall they have to be gross in communal living areas but she can’t, not when they’re both blushed pink and unable to hide their smiles.

“Well,” she says, “at least we know whose apartment you went back to.” Honestly, she can’t even bring herself to feel mad, not unless they did it in her room: she’s mainly just impressed. Way to go, Sarah.

“Do we?” says Pope, from his doorway, and when she turns he’s holding a rogue pair of boxers between his fingers. Kie glances at Sarah, whose ears are pink, and is pointedly adjusting the straps on her sundress.

Kie gapes. “You had sex in _both_ apartments?”

“Round two sort of just happened,” Sarah defends, though she doesn’t look particularly sorry. Not that Kie can necessarily blame her. If the dick was that good, she’s actually a little jealous. “It’s just—John B cooked us a meal, and it was so just so sweet that I got carried away.”

Pope and Kie exchange a look.

“By any chance,” Pope says, “did you ever get around to eating the meal?”

Twenty minutes later finds the group of them in the boys’ apartment, Pope and Kie eating the pasta bake straight out of the pan (partly because it’s simply that good, mostly because she doesn’t trust that they didn’t have sex on most of the furniture in the living room), Sarah and John B snuggled on the couch, laughing as Pope recounts a story about one of his professors. Kie is too busy eating to participate much, just makes attentive _mm-mm_ sounds, but something warms under her ribs at the atmosphere in the room. She never had many friends growing up, she didn’t fit in with the other girls at the Kook Academy because she was prickly and loud-spoken and cared more about turtles than boys, but this, now, being a room surrounded by people she likes, who like her, has her heart thumping in the recesses of her chest. She likes this.

Pope is halfway through a story about a girl in his forensics lecture when the front door clicks open and JJ comes in. His sandy hair is tucked under a backwards cap and he’s wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off that shows a lot of his lean, golden body. Pope pauses his story momentarily to chirp, “Hey, man!” and wave his fork at him, and when JJ glances over, Kie quickly looks back down at the pot, hoping he couldn’t tell that she was staring.

“Hey,” he says.

John B hooks his arm around the back of the couch and beams. “JJ, hey! I thought you were still in your room.”

JJ dumps his bag by the door. “Are you kidding? I left as soon as I heard you guys move to 54A. I wasn’t gonna wait around.”

 _See what I mean?_ Pope mouths to Kie, who hides her snort into her hand.

JJ looks over at them again, his eyes uncharacteristically sharp. “What are you eating?”

Kie feels weirdly scrutinised, but Pope either is oblivious or ignores it, because he beckons him over. “John B made pasta bake.”

“You made pasta bake for a date?” JJ says, amused.

“I thought it was sweet,” Sarah defends.

John B gives her a moony look, and the whole room rolls their eyes: Kie can only assume, only because she’s too busy rolling her own. “You would,” she says, half-teasing, and Sarah flips her off.

“Come, JJ, it’s great,” Pope says. JJ evidently needs no convincing, because he doesn’t even kick off his boots before he comes over. Pope feeds him a mouthful from his fork and says, “You smell of sweat”, and JJ shakes his head like a dog over him, and Kie has to look away. “What were you even doing, completing a marathon?”

“Working, asshole,” JJ says, once he’s swallowed, and hip-checks him aside to get a fork of his own. “Fucking hell, John B, why don’t you ever cook like this for us?”

“None of you ever ask me,” says John B.

“Yeah, so? What about generosity?”

“You’re one to talk about generosity,” Pope says, and JJ flips him off as he takes another mouthful.

Kie, who evidently has no self-preservation, says, “I thought you worked in the mornings?”

JJ glances at her. This close, she can see where his hair is stuck to his face with perspiration, turning it from blond to dark gold, sees where the sweat is collecting in his collarbones. She literally has to crush her fingers between her hip and the countertop to stop herself from reaching over and touching it. “Yeah, at The Wreck,” he says. “I work at a car shop in the evenings.”

And Jesus, isn’t that an image. Kie has to cram another forkful of food in her mouth to stop her mind from wandering to thoughts of JJ bent shirtless over an open car. No siree. Not today.

“Where did you quarantine then?” JJ says to Pope. “Away from those two.” He nods at John B and Sarah, who are laughing about something on Sarah’s phone. Kie watches them fondly.

“Me and Kie hit up the library,” Pope says, “got some studying done.”

JJ’s face flickers. “Both of you?”

Kie frowns. What is that supposed to mean? What is his fucking problem?

Even Pope seems to catch on to the note in his voice, because he makes a kissy face at him. “What’s the problem, JJ? Jealous? Worried I’m replacing you?”

The weird air between them dissipates, and JJ rolls his eyes. “Fuck off.”

“Don’t worry, baby,” Pope cooes, and blows a kiss at him, “you’re always my number one.”

JJ scoffs and shoves at him and Kie tries so hard not to notice the way Pope flings an arm around his shoulder, long fingers teasing the hollow in his collarbone she so badly wanted to touch, the way JJ leans in, momentarily pressing their temples together in quiet acknowledgement. Instead, she turns back to the pan and scrapes at a burnt bit with her fork, hating herself just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u all for the lovely comments on the first chapter!! hope u liked this one :-] (also don't worry this is a jiara story!! just a lot of miscommunicatin' to happen before then :D)
> 
> if u want to chat i'm on [tumblr](https://smileymikey.tumblr.com/) :-D


	3. Chapter 3

To absolutely no one’s surprise, John B and Sarah are sickeningly cute together.

They spend half their nights in Sarah’s room and the other half in John B’s, and on the rare occasion they emerge they’re just so genuinely happy that Kie can’t even in good conscience bitch about how they can’t keep squirreling away the cornflakes. Sometimes she can hear them through her bedroom wall, when she’s up late studying or watching a movie, though usually she can’t make out much: just the hum of talking and laughter, and other noises she doesn’t want to think about too hard. Is it sex or yoga? Literally could be either, and she does not have the willpower to investigate. She’s burst in on compromising positions and exiled herself for what was apparently just an intense tree pose too many times for her to care anymore.

It also means that she’s not spending a lot of time at home, either. Even if they’re not doing anything particularly offensive, just staring into each other’s eyes and feeding each other strawberries or whatever, there is only so much Kie can withstand before she actually goes insane, so she’s been splitting her time between the library and 54B.

Pope, as always, never fails to be an utter darling. As it turns out, they have a lot of overlap in classes, so much so that she’s surprised they’ve never crossed paths before, so they help each other out with assignments and other pieces of research. He’s majoring in Forensic Science but apparently the few Environmental Studies lectures he’s attended really piqued his interest, because now at least once a week they’re exchanging research papers on Facebook about various studies on microplastics and its consequences on marine life. Kie has always thought that she studied better alone, but clearly the people she’d been working with were just terrible study buddies, because having Pope type out an essay across the table from her, occasionally taking breaks to bitch about various professors or raid the vending machine, has strangely made her more productive than ever before.

Unfortunately, that’s sort of the only thing that’s developed as a result of Sarah and John B’s relationship. Despite the boys’ insistence that JJ was sorry about how much of an asshole he’d been on the first day, and how much they thought he liked her, they’d barely exchanged more than a handful words to each other since. She’s even taken to avoiding The Wreck, which is a crying shame considering the only other coffee joint on campus that isn’t Starbucks (because fuck chain corporations) overcharges and always burns the tea leaves.

At this point, she’s sort of given up on expecting anything. It was probably for the best, anyway, that she wasn’t giving herself any more reasons to like the boyfriend of one of her friends. JJ and his pretty eyelashes can simply just be a nice visual in her peripheral. No need to throw any more fuel on that fire.

At least, that was the _plan_.

As most things do recently, it started with Sarah. It was a Saturday, and a rare moment that Sarah and John B had separated at the mouth long enough to stay apart during the night. They had stayed up watching movies like the old days back in the dorms, and honestly Kie had forgotten how much she’d missed Sarah. She hadn’t realised just how little time they spent together now that she had a boyfriend.

And then she’d woken up the next morning, gone to the kitchen to make breakfast, and realised that the whole fucking toaster was gone.

_I take it all back_ , she thinks, as she stands outside 54B and waits for the door to be answered. She does not miss Sarah. At least when she’s suckered to John B she doesn’t have the time to do dumb shit like _this_.

John B is, of course, the one to answer the door, and when he sees her, he grins easily. “Kie!” he says. “Hey! I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Yeah, sorry, sort of an emergency stop,” she says. “Do you have time?”

“For you? Always! What can I do for you?”

“My dumbass roommate apparently lent you our toaster.”

John B’s face does something soppy and gross at the mention of Sarah. Jesus. Kie thought the honeymoon period was meant to be quick. No wonder they’re so attracted to each other: both their eyes go so moony that they probably form their own magnetic force. “She did,” he says, affectionately. “Isn’t that so sweet?”

“It’s a toaster.”

“It was really generous of her,” John B says. “Tell her thank you. And that I love her.”

“GAG,” what sounds like Pope calls from within. Kie is inclined to agree.

“Can we have it back?”

John B starts a little, like he had forgotten she probably had an agenda in showing up to their flat other than making idle small talk with him at the front door. She never shows up just because. There’s always an agenda.

“Of course!” he says, and takes a step back. “Come in, come in, let me just grab it. Do you want anything to eat? Drink? Tea?”

She wasn’t planning on staying, but she’s not about to turn down a free hot drink. “Tea, if that’s okay,” she says, as she follows him in. Pope and JJ are crammed in the small window in the living room, passing a joint between them, and blowing the smoke out the window, presumably so it doesn’t set off any fire alarms. Pope grins when he sees her as he passes the joint back over to JJ, and Kie tries really hard not to notice how their hands brush, and the overlap of their ankles as they contortion their bodies to fit. “Morning, Kie,” he says.

JJ, who was turned to the window, turns at mention of her name, and his face does something peculiar when his eyes land on her. Her heart clenches, expecting another blatant disregard, but to her surprise he sends a small smile her way. “Hey,” he says.

Kie’s heart stutters. “Uh, hey,” she says.

Pope grins at her, oblivious. “Did you see that article I sent you?”

She tries to ignore the distracting line of JJ’s golden shoulders, and wracks her brain. “An article?”

He nods.

“Uh, no, not yet.”

“I sent it on Facebook, it’s really good. It’s about these new biodegradable can-rings.”

JJ’s eyes flicker between the two of them, eyebrows furrowed. Kie feels herself bristle. Just because he decided to be a prick to her doesn’t mean his boyfriend has to be, too.

“I’ll check it out,” she says. “Thanks.”

Pope grins at her, and then reaches across JJ to flick the ash off the end of the blunt. “What can we do for you, then?”

“I’ve come to collect our toaster, which was apparently appropriated by you.”

Weakly, John B protests, “Sarah gave it to me!”

“Please find other mating rituals,” Kie says, “I don’t need kitchen appliances to be used as foreplay.”

JJ snorts, and their eyes meet. She quickly looks away. From the corner of her eye, she sees him grin.

“That toaster does make some pretty sexy toast,” Pope says, a little mournfully. “I’ll miss it.”

John B rolls his eyes, and then makes a move to the kitchen. “You wanted tea, Kie? What kind?”

“What do you have?”

“Uh...” A beat, and then his head sheepishly pops around the doorframe. “So, we have run out of tea. Can I perhaps interest you in a dry cracker?”

Pope sits up. “We’ve run out of tea? How?”

“No, we haven’t,” JJ says. “There should be some in the top cupboard.” He straightens, glances at Kie. “White, yeah?”

The only upside to being a chronic over-thinker is that this doesn’t make her heart leap out of her chest like it did the first time. “Good memory.”

He shrugs. “You order it a lot.”

Well, until that, anyway. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Pope simply grins at her, oblivious. “You have white tea as well, Kie? Great! Now the boys can’t bully me anymore for having it. Tell them how many health benefits it has.”

“Please don’t get him started on antioxidants,” says John B, as remerges from the kitchen, holding a mug of tea. “He will talk your ear all off day about it.”

“Studies have shown it can reduce the risk of cancer,” Pope says.

JJ takes the joint from him, and leans closer. The windowsill is so tiny he only has to shift a couple of inches until his mouth is pressed against his ear. “Do you want to hear a secret?” he whispers. “ _No one cares_.”

“Fuck off!” Pope cries, dismayed, as John B and JJ burst out laughing. Kie watches JJ straighten, bring the joint to his lips, the movement of his throat as he inhales: and then the masochist in her watches as his other hand moves to Pope’s knee, gives it a squeeze, like he’s reassuring him he was only kidding. She knows she should pull her eyes away, this isn’t for her to look at, but for some reason she can’t: it’s something of a punishment, feeling the pit in her stomach split wider and wider.

It’s not until the room has gone silent that she realises John B’s asked her something, and she flicks her eyes up to meet their faces. “What?” she says.

John B laughs softly. “I was just handing over your tea.”

Kie feels her cheeks heat. “Oh, right.” She takes it from him, tucks her fingers through the handle, keeps one hand balanced underneath. The mug itself is surprisingly toned down, considering who its owners are: stone green, with white stripes. She flicks it a meaningful look.

“It’s mine,” John B clarifies. “I read an article about how introducing a muted colour scheme into a living environment can bring peace and serenity to its inhabitants.”

Considering Kie had to step over a heap of broken glass to get inside, she’s not quite sure how well it’s working, but John B looks too pleased with himself for her to want to point it out. She just takes a sip of the tea, lets the scalding water burn the inside of her mouth.

Pope shifts a little in the sill, nods at the couch a few inches below. “Come, Kie, sit.”

She does, crossing her legs so she’s facing them. At her vantage point, her eyeline is at their knees, so she has to look up to see their faces. She tells herself that it’s the only reason, and has nothing to do with the fact their entangled legs are mere inches from her face.

“You know, I’ve actually signed up for that ecosystem management class you were telling me about,” Pope is saying, as he takes the blunt from JJ. “My RA was telling me that I needed another elective to meet my requirements and then I remembered all the things you were telling me about how plastic is having such a negative impact on aquatic life and thought I’d try that.”

“That’s great,” she says. “I think you’ll really like it, it’s my favourite class, even though sometimes it makes me kind of angry just hearing all the ways that we’re ruining the planet.”

Pope nods emphatically. “Right? I’m thinking about asking the building manager here if we can think about implementing a more efficient recycling system, because all our trash just gets put in one pile. Would you help me, if we could? I know it’s not a huge change but it’s a step in the right direction!”

“Are you seriously talking about plastic?” JJ says, and they both glance at him. He flicks his eyes over the top of his phone. “You’re such nerds.”

“Sorry for caring about the environment,” Pope says, except it sounds more affectionately resigned than anything. This is clearly an argument they’ve had before and _nope_ , Kie, down. “I’ve been thinking, we should maybe look into investing in organic weed.”

JJ frowns. “What?”

“It would be healthier.”

“Pope, it’s weed, it’s not like it was very healthy in the first place.”

“We wouldn’t be ingesting pesticides!”

JJ just blinks in disbelief, and collapses back against the wall. “You chat such shit.”

Pope knocks their ankles together. “Don’t be rude. Kie, back me up on this.”

They both glance at her. JJ’s expression is almost unreadable, but there’s a flicker of something in his eyes – intrigue, almost, as if he’s seeing where she’s going to take this. It’s not much, but it’s enough for her to set her shoulders back.

“Organic never hurt anyone,” she says.

Pope crows triumphantly, and JJ rolls his eyes. “Jesus, not fucking you too.”

“I hear the sounds of a debate happening in here!” John B says cheerfully as he comes out of the kitchen, cradling the toaster in his arms. Kie immediately zeroes in on the dent that she is certain was not there before. “What are we talking about, gang?”

“Pope and Kie are being nerds,” JJ says.

“Excellent,” John B says, and he sounds like he means it too. Despite the ridiculous neck scarves and frankly extortionate amount of time he spends suckered to her best friend’s mouth, he is a genuinely nice dude, always encouraging Kie and Pope in their educational pursuits, and simply accepting whatever shit JJ gets up to. Kie guesses she’s glad that Sarah’s dating him. She could definitely do a lot worse. “Kiara, your toaster.”

Kie finishes her tea and stands, taking it out of his arms. “Thanks.”

To her surprise, JJ shifts in the sill, swings his legs over. “I’ll walk you out.”

Her heart pounds. She raises an eyebrow. “The two steps to the door?”

“Fine, I’ll walk you to your door.”

“Okay, so four steps.”

“Can I walk you out or not?” he says. She surveys him for a long time, before finally sighing.

“Fine.”

JJ nods at her, something indecipherable in his expression, before he stands and salutes Pope and John B. “Won’t be two minutes, boys.”

“Be safe, baby!” Pope calls. “Don’t get lost on the treacherous journey there!”

JJ flips him the bird. The door closes on their laughter.

For a few moments, Kie and JJ stand in silence. She has no idea what he’s doing. She just wraps her arms tighter around the toaster against her ribs, like she’s trying to keep her heart from pounding right out of her chest.

“Well,” she says, after an extended pause, when it becomes clear he’s not talking, “this is me.”

“I haven’t seen you at The Wreck in a while,” he says, suddenly.

Kie frowns. This is the first proper conversation they’ve ever had and this is how he’s starting it? “Uh,” she says. “No, I guess not.” She doesn’t say _because I was avoiding you_ , but JJ winces like he knows, so maybe she hadn’t done too well at maintaining it as subtext. 

He sighs. He looks bothered. “Look, I know—I know things are a bit weird, between us.”

“Are they?” she says drily. “I hadn’t noticed.”

He scowls. “Look, I’m—I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to be such a dick when we first met. I was just—having a bad day, and I was tired, and grouchy, and I didn’t mean to treat you like that. I’m really sorry.”

Kie watches him. “Did the boys put you up to this?”

“What? No, no. I mean—they told me to get my shit together, but—no. I—” He huffs impatiently through his nose. “I like you, Kie. I think we could be good friends. I just thought—maybe we could get over this—whatever this is. Fucking awkwardness. I didn’t mean to run you out of The Wreck. I know you go there a lot.”

“Evidently,” Kie says, “you know my order.”

“Stellar employee,” JJ says. He sounds a little hopeful, like by them being able to banter like this all is forgiven. And honestly, it is: it wasn’t like what he did was particularly offensive, just sort of irritating, especially when it was seemingly unprovoked and she had living proof that he was capable of being a decent person. All she had wanted was recognition for his shit. Still, it’s fun to toy with him.

“Really?” she says. “Because I wouldn’t say you’ve exercised great customer service so far.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I’m the fucking _best_ with customer service.”

“You lost a customer because of your attitude. I think there’s room for improvement.”

“Yeah, but, they came back, didn’t they?”

His tone is even but his expression is cautiously hopeful. She hoists the toaster up higher on her hip, pretending to think.

“What’s in it for them, then?”

He frowns. “The tea?”

“That’s not an incentive,” she says, “they can get tea anywhere.” Which is a lie, because unfortunately The Wreck has given her unrealistic standards about how a good tea should be made, that the likes of Starbucks or the other hipster place couldn’t touch with a ten-foot barge pole. Not that JJ has to know that.

He smirks a little like he does, though, but he plays along. “Well,” he says, “I _guess_ I could get them a neighbour discount.”

“The neighbour discount that you won’t even give to John B?”

“You mean because John B’s not my neighbour?” He’s still giving her that look, and _fuck_. This is not helping. “Yeah, that one.”

“I guess you’ve twisted their arm,” she says, “I’ll let them know,” and he smiles. He doesn’t smile much like this, normally he just smirks or scowls, and she thinks it’s a crying shame. His whole face softens when he smiles. Fuck. This handsome, acerbic, witty boy in front of her is suddenly becoming a lot less intangible and fuck fuck fuck his boyfriend is literally ten feet away.

“See you there, then,” he says. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll let you get back, I probably should, too.”

“Wouldn’t want them thinking you got lost.”

“The fuckin’ tragedy of that,” he says, but he’s still smiling. “I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah,” she says, and it sounds like a mistake coming out of her mouth, but can anything that results in a smile like that ever really be a mistake? “See you around.”

He nods at her, and then disappears back through his door. As soon as he’s gone, she closes her eyes, and leans against her door, sliding down it with the toaster in her lap.

If she thought this was going to make thing better, she was sorely mistaken.

*

She doesn’t dress up a little the next morning. She _doesn’t_.

Just... her hair had been needing a wash, anyway. And it was hot, of course she was going to wear a cropped shirt. She wasn’t even totally sure she was going to stop by The Wreck on her way to her study session with Pope at the library, anyway, but she was walking through the quad and saw the shop window and thought why not? She hadn’t been there in a while so they were probably missing her patronship. The fact that she looks a little nicer than normal is simply a mere coincidence.

(Oh, who the fuck is she kidding.)

She steps inside and is immediately surrounded by the smell of roasting coffee beans and the sound of soft chatter and the tap of keyboards. It’s still early enough for it not to be completely jam-packed, so the line is only a couple of people long; she can see JJ at the counter, in a black apron and a backwards cap, his golden hair sticking out from the sides. There is something almost so sensually violent about the way he moves, accidentally knocking into cups and punching totals into the cash register with taped-up fingers. Even from this far away, she can see the blond hair dusting his knuckles, and she has to look away. Why is that hot? That’s not hot. (It’s a little hot.)

JJ is talking to the girl at the front of the queue, but when he reaches over for her change his eyes flick upwards and meet Kie’s, down the line, and traitorously she feels her heart thump a little in her chest: first, that he’s noticed her at all, and then at the way he smiles a little, softer, something she hasn’t really seen on him before. She smiles at him back, and his eyes crinkle, before turning back to the girl.

The line is fast-moving, so within minutes she’s stepping up the counter, and JJ is smirking at her. “Well, well, well,” he says. “Look who turned up.”

“Said I would, didn’t I?”

He grins. “I see I put forward a convincing case.”

She splutters, a little indignantly. “This was nothing to do with you.”

“Really.”

“The tea’s good, is all.”

“Right,” JJ says, in a voice that says he doesn’t believe her. Even she doesn’t believe her: like the tea means anything, when he’s looking at her like that. Pope is suddenly very hard to remember. They stand there for a few moments, before JJ raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to order?”

She raises an eyebrow. “I thought you already knew my order.”

“You think I think about you that much?”

And wow, dangerous territory. She tries to steer it back from anything other than strictly platonic. “You’ve literally said that you know my order.”

“I wasn’t going to put you ordering, like, a black coffee today to mess with me beneath you.”

That is absolutely something she would’ve done. “Not today.”

“So, a white tea, then?”

She smiles. “Aw, you do know my order.”

He taps his temple. “Stellar employee.”

“I’ll be sure to give you a good Yelp rating,” she says dryly, and JJ snorts. “Three and a half stars.”

“Hey, fuck you, three and a half? Where’s the other one and a half stars gone?”

“Something needs to account for your terrible attitude.”

“ _My terrible attitude_ ,” he mocks, but he’s smiling as he punches her order in. “I got you back, though, didn’t I?”

“Through coercion.”

“You’re still here.”

And she can’t really deny that, so she just rolls her eyes. “What do I owe you?”

“Two twenty.”

She pulls out her purse and starts counting out her coins, sliding them across the counter to him. It’s not until he’s frowning down at them, lips mouthing out the numbers as he presumably tries to make sure it’s the correct amount, that it hits her. “Didn’t you promise me a neighbour discount?”

JJ glances up at her. “What?”

“The neighbour discount. The one you were extending towards me because we’re neighbours.”

He rolls his eyes. “Kie.”

“If you’re going to coerce me, at least follow through on it.”

JJ shakes his head exasperatedly, something she’s seen him do a lot around Pope or John B when they’ve done something endearingly stupid, and something in her heart warms knowing that he clearly likes her enough to extend this little gesture towards her, too: that, to him, she’s part of his little family at 54B. He looks back down at the coins on the counter, and then, completely deadpan, slides her back ten cents.

“Here,” he says. “Your discount.”

She can’t stop the laugh that escapes her. “How generous.”

He shrugs modestly. “That’s my middle name. JJ Generous Maybank.”

“Even got an alliteration, nice.”

“Planned.”

“I’m sure.” The charade breaks a little as they both start to laugh, and then Kie picks up the ten cents and reaches across, sliding it into his apron pocket. “A tip.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” he says, “ten whole cents? You’re too kind. I can’t take this.”

“Think of it as ‘I forgive you for being an asshole’,” she says, and he grins.

“Well, then, I’ll guard it with my heart,” he promises, whatever the fuck _that’s_ supposed to mean, but before her mind starts overanalysing, he gestures with a nod to the other end of the counter. “You can wait there, it’ll only be a few minutes.”

“Okay,” she says. “Uh, it was nice seeing you, JJ.”

And really, it was. She hadn’t realised just how nice he was to talk to: she thinks after all these weeks they’d spent hopscotching around each other, only exchanging the most stilted of words, she’d sort of forgotten that he was anything outside of that. To find that he’s actually pretty funny, and easy to talk to, only serves to make her crush on him even worse, which, _shit_. Still, it’s hard to remember that he’s entirely unavailable, when he looks at her like that, and says, “Yeah, you too.”

Jesus, she should have just stayed hating him forever. It’s so much better then whatever the fuck her heart thinks it’s doing now.

She nods, and is just about to head on over, when he says, “Wait, Kie—”

She pivots, to find him looking almost a little nervous, tapping at the cash register. “Yeah?”

“You and Pope usually study in the library, right?” he says.

“Uh, yeah,” she says. “I’m heading over now, actually.”

“Oh, cool.” His fingers are still tapping at the register, and she frowns.

“You’re being weird.”

“Fuck you, you’re being weird,” he says. “Go get your fucking coffee, or whatever.”

“Good seeing you too.”

“What _ever_ ,” he calls, and she only lets the smile show once she’s turned around and sure he can’t see her face anymore. He’s a piece of shit, but for some reason there’s something sort of charming about it, though she’d be a fool to think JJ wouldn’t take advantage of that if he ever found out. Instead, she waits at the other end of the counter, watching him out of the corner of her eye as he takes the order of the next customer. He is so magnetic, is the thing, drawing her eyes to him like a compass: something so paradoxically alluring, from the scabs on his knuckles and the gold of his hair, so much so that she almost misses her drink when it slides across the counter with a confused, “Kie?”

She picks up her cup, sliding it into a coffee sleeve, and then huffs out a laugh at the “KEY” scrawled on the side in Sharpie, with a little doodle of an actual key next to it, inscribed at the very top with 54A. It’s so cute that she can’t help seek him out as she’s leaving, their eyes meeting just as she’s walking through the door. She raises her cup at him, and he comically feigns ignorance, mouthing, “What?”

She just rolls her eyes, and turns away to hide her smile.

Yeah. This is a bit of a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope u enjoyed! :-D
> 
> come say hello on [tumblr](https://smileymikey.tumblr.com/m) if u want!!


	4. Chapter 4

Kie is halfway to the library when she gets a call from Pope.

“Hi, I’m so sorry, I’m nearly there,” she says, as soon as she picks up, “I know I’m late—”

Pope’s laugh is warm through the phone line. “It’s chill, don’t worry.”

“I know we said three, but my lecture overran—”

“Seriously, Kie, it’s fine, no stress. It’s actually good timing. I was just on my way back from the library, apparently it’s been closed for the day because of maintenance, or something.”

Kie frowns. “Maintenance? What’s there to maintain in a library?”

“God knows,” Pope says. “Do you want to come over to ours and study there instead? I know it’s not exactly productivity central but John B’s going out anyway and JJ promises to be invisible.”

The idea that JJ could ever possibly be invisible enough to not draw attention feel unfathomable. The idea that JJ also apparently promised to do so is even funnier. “I’m sure he did,” she says agreeably.

“Okay, so not in so many words, but I’ll convince him.”

The smile on her face dies immediately.

He must take her silence for hesitance, because when he next speaks it’s something close to a wheedle. “So? What do you say? Study buddies conquering new horizons? We have cake.”

She supposes it can’t hurt. She’s found just from living in close proximity to the boys that John B tends to be the most distracting in terms of simply being in the immediate vicinity, because even if you lock him in a room he’ll still find a way to rope you into a conversation about a movie he watched or the number of ways one can artfully tie a neck scarf without looking like a hipster. At least if JJ is camped out behind a closed door his pretty eyes and nice arms can’t distract her. Besides, she really does need this essay finished, and she always works best with Pope.

Mind already made up, she heaves a put-about sigh, but mostly for show. “Well, I suppose it’ll have to do. If there’s gonna be cake.”

She can almost hear his grin through the line. “Great! See you in ten?”

“See you.”

He hangs up, and Kie pulls her phone away from her ear. She’s sure the library would have sent out an email or something if they were closed, or posted it on the bulletin – but maybe it was an emergency. Besides, a change of scenery will probably do her good. She’s probably inhaled more than what’s considered a healthy amount of mildew from the hours she’s spent curled up in a corner of the library grouchily typing away at her laptop. She shrugs, tucks her phone in her pocket, and turns on her heel back to the apartment block.

As she approaches 54B, she is oddly hit by a sense of déjà vu, mainly because the palaver happening behind it can be heard from all the way down the hall: though this time, instead of loud rock music, it’s John B’s good-natured bellow, saying something about ties, and the murmur of other voices speaking at an acceptable volume. Kie rolls her eyes affectionately at their antics and knocks. Almost immediately, the voices fall quiet, and what sounds like Pope calls, “It’s open!”

“That’s probably not very safe,” Kie says, as she pushes it open, “what if I was a serial kil—”

And then her eyes fall upon a very, very shirtless JJ.

He doesn’t spot her for a few moments, turned towards a closed door she can only assume is to the bathroom that John B is shouting through, face softened in fond exasperation, and even though the sensible part of her brain is screaming that perpetuating the objectification standards that let old men on the bus think it’s okay to ogle her ass is going against everything she believes in, it’s all sort of dissolved in the face of JJ’s arms, and his _abs_ , Jesus fucking Christ. She’d gotten a hint at muscle through the armholes he cuts in his shirt that leave half his ribs out and the shift of his biceps under the sleeves of his uniform at The Wreck, but she hadn’t in her wildest dreams anticipated _this_. Kie has never considered herself particularly to be a slave to her primal drives, especially not any sexual ones, but she doesn’t think she’s ever felt the urge to climb something like a tree as much as she has staring at him.

It’s not until he turns and spots her that she realises she has been openly staring for around ten seconds. His mouth drops open a little in surprise. “Kie?”

She has to swallow once or twice to get her mouth moving. “Afternoon,” she says, trying for flippant. “Do you make a habit of answering the door naked?”

His lips quirk upwards. “Technically,” he says, “I didn’t answer the door, and technically, I’m not naked.”

“Technically, it’s poor manners,” Kie says. “I mean, were you raised in a barn?”

“Is something wrong, Carerra?” And then he takes a step closer. “I mean, can put on a shirt if I’m bothering you.”

“You’re not—” She sees his eyes light up in triumph, and she purses her lips, hoping her amusement isn’t evident in her eyes. Talking to him like this is fun. “Whatever. Is Pope home?”

“Why? Did you need something?”

“Pope and I are engaged in a torrid love affair, didn’t you know?”

Something in JJ’s expression flattens a little at that, but before she can question it Pope himself appears from the kitchen, holding a paper plate with a slightly battered piece of cake on it. “Is that Kie?” he says.

“Hey, Pope,” Kie says, with a wave. “I’m just getting grilled by your impolite roommate.”

“Pope,” JJ says, “you didn’t mention Kie was coming over.”

Pope gives him a grin that feels a little wicked. “Library was closed. Maintenance. Sucks, right?”

“Maintenance?” JJ repeats. “What the fuck is there to maintain in a library?”

“That’s what I said,” Kie says, and JJ gives her an indecipherable look that makes her heart stutter in her ribcage.

“Well, _I_ don’t know,” Pope says, “probably lots of things. Books, and stuff. What’s with the interrogation? Kie, come, sit, let me just clear the sofa for you.”

“The interrogation is because I don’t trust you a single thing coming out of your mouth,” JJ mutters, but he dutifully steps aside to let her through. Slightly bemused, Kie heads over, as Pope picks various laundry pieces and empty pizza boxes off the sofa. JJ catches an Xbox controller before it hits the ground and cradles it to his chest like it’s a child, which is so strangely endearing Kie has to turn away, and instead swings herself down into an empty space, unzipping her bag.

When she looks up, JJ and Pope seem to be silently arguing something with their eyes, that involves Pope looking a level of mischievous that can only really be described as ungodly. Kie has no idea what’s going on, but frankly she can’t blame JJ for how suspicious he seems, only because Pope looking that innocent means he’s really anything but.

Finally, after a few moments, JJ breaks, and turns on his heel towards the kitchen with a grouchy, “I’m getting a beer.” Kie watches him go, her eyes drawn to him like magnets, watching just how easily the glide of his skin moves over his strong shoulders. Then she realises that the room has lapsed into silence and her eyes fly to Pope’s, who looks altogether too pleased with himself.

Shit. He just caught her staring at his boyfriend.

Thankfully, before he can say anything, the bathroom door opens and John B emerges in a cloud of steam, towel draped loosely over his neck, hair damp. “Is that Kiara I hear?”

“Hey, John B,” she says. His eyes peer through the steam at her, and once it clears enough he beams.

“Hey! I didn’t know you were coming around today.” He catches sight of JJ in the kitchen and makes a sort of indignant sound. “JJ, we have company, put a shirt on.”

“Kie doesn’t mind,” JJ says, and Kie really does not want him to realise just how little she minds so she says, “It offended me pretty mortally.”

“Mortally!” he parrots incredulously, but when he next emerges, a can of beer in hand, he’s wearing a tank. She can’t decide whether to be grateful or annoyed.

“Yeah, Kie and I are studying together,” Pope says, as he collapses in the seat next to her, the couch letting out a wheezy sound in protest. “I need to finish this paper for my Forensics prof and Kie has... a Film and Media essay?”

Kie feels quite touched that he remembered that. “Yeah, I do.”

“Attentive,” Pope says, nudging their shoulders together, and she smiles at him. When she turns back, she catches sight of JJ looking like he’s just swallowed a lemon, and she frowns. There’s no way she will stand for it if he regresses back to grouchy JJ, not after she’s uncovered so many of his layers.

Before she can point it out, though, John B lets out a merry sound and says, “Well, I’ll leave you two to it. Any more education talk and I’ll break out in hives.”

“You’re in school though, aren’t you?” Kie says.

John B snorts. “There’s a difference between _being in school_ and _studying_. Personally, I prefer the more holistic approach to learning, I think it would tremendously benefit everyone if it was centred around the person as opposed to simply making the country look good.” Behind him, JJ has mouthed along to half of this, pretending to twiddle a moustache, and Kie has to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing out loud. It mustn’t be successful because John B’s smile drops, and he looks over his shoulder. “What? Are you making fun of me?”

“Of course not,” JJ says, slinging an arm over his shoulder, “when have I ever?”

“It’s impossible to make fun of you, John B,” Pope says agreeably, and John B throws his towel at him. “Hey!”

“Whatever,” John B says. “Kie agrees, doesn’t she?”

She raises her hands. “I’m just here for cake. Don’t rope me into this.”

“ _She does_ ,” John B stage-whispers, and both JJ and Pope roll their eyes in tandem. It’s sort of impressive, actually.

 _Because they’re_ boyfriends _, Kie_ , she snaps at herself. Jesus. She needs to pull herself together. It’s been two months.

“Not everyone agrees with your hippie shit, John B,” JJ says, as he drains the last of his beer, and sort of impressively lobs the empty can it into the bin. He comes up to the back of the couch and puts his hands in between where Kie and Pope are sat on the backrest, and she doesn’t think she’s ever been so aware of three inches so much. “Kie only tolerates you.”

“As opposed to you, you mean,” Pope says, amused.

“Kie loves me,” JJ crows, and squeezes her shoulder. She hopes her expression doesn’t convey how much she wants to fall through the floor. “Don’t you, Kie? We kumbaya-ed and all that shit.”

Still, not reacting would be so much worse. She puts her hand on top of JJ’s, still on her shoulder. His fingers are warm. “Best buds,” she agrees.

Pope gives them a fond, exasperated look. “Well, your best bud and I need to keep working,” he says, “and you’re being a distraction.”

“Oh, I am?” JJ says with as much euphemism as one can possibly load into two words. Pope rolls his eyes.

“Yes, actually. Go on, shoo.”

The words are out before Kie can even properly comprehend. “JJ can study with us if he wants,” she offers. She cranes her neck and looks up at him, upside-down. She can feel the top of her head brushing against his stomach. “Don’t you have any work you need to be doing?”

“JJ wouldn’t know work if it hit him over the head,” Pope says, with a snigger, and JJ flips him off.

“Hey, fuck you, who’s the one earning the money around here?”

“Our own little housewife,” Pope says, fluttering his eyelashes, and JJ steps away to shove at his head.

“Aren’t you still in school?” Kie says to him. She can still feel the imprint of his hand on her shoulder like a breath on a cold window.

JJ scoffs. “Nope.”

“JJ is not what you call academically driven,” Pope says, and JJ flips him off. “What? That wasn’t an insult, it’s true!”

“All his pursuits are still noble ones,” John B interjects, as his head emerges from the hoodie he was pulling on, “regardless of tertiary education.”

JJ rolls his eyes. To Kie, he says, “they could probably write a dissertation on the amount of garbage they’ve scrounged up on the benefits of not going to college.”

“We’re being good friends!” John B protests. “We just wanted you to know that we’re actively supporting you and whatever decisions you make in life.”

JJ simply rolls his eyes again, but Kie can tell that under the scowl he appreciates it. Kie hasn’t known them for long but from what she’s gathered both John B and Pope seem to approach friendship with a determination that probably wouldn’t be out of place in a street brawl. It’s sort of sweet, the way they do fiercely defend him, shooting Kie glances as if daring her to say anything bad about it.

Even JJ keeps glancing at her, waiting for her verdict.

“That’s cool,” she says simply. “No use feeding into an already corrupt education system any more than you have to.”

She sees JJ’s face ease in relief, his scowl becoming less anxious. Pope grins at her. “That’s what I said!” he says, and leans forward for a high five. “We share a brain, Kie.”

She indulges him in the high-five, which she has quickly learnt is something that Pope likes to do. It’s a lot endearing and a little weird. He is probably the only person on this side of their twenties who gives high-fives.

“So, where do you work now, then?” she says. “Just The Wreck?”

“And the car shop,” JJ says. Kie is surprised she forgot: after he had revealed that, her dreams for the next week had featured a lot of JJ in grease-stained overalls and not much else. At least she can flesh it out now she knows what he looks like without a shirt. “I also run a treasure-hunting scheme on the side. We’re looking for four hundred million in gold.”

Kie frowns. “Seriously?”

“No,” he says, with a grin. “But it would be cool if that were true.”

“When John B found that heap of gold on the windowsill he thought it was worth millions,” Pope says, laughing. “He tried to pawn it off and found it was only worth about three dollars.”

Kie looks over at John B, who has gone pink. “What’s this, pick-on-John-B day?” he says. “The gold paint was convincing. It’s not my fault neither of you are optimists. At least we got a nice ornament out of it.”

“It’s the single ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” JJ says. “We just tolerate it because you like it.”

John B pulls a face, and JJ pulls one back. Kie laughs.

“I’m going to go before I get insulted any further,” John B says. “Hope you all have a rotten time. Except you, of course, Kiara, I wish you nothing but success.”

She rolls her eyes. “Bye, John B.”

“Stay safe, baby,” Pope calls, and John B flips him off as he disappears through the front door, slamming it behind him.

“I should be heading too, actually,” JJ says, “my shift will start soon.”

Pope drops his head against the back of the couch to look at him. “When will you be home?”

“Probably around seven.”

Resolutely, Kie fixes her attention on her bag, as she unpacks her laptop, trying her hardest to ignore their conversation as it continues. Around them, it’s easy to forget that they’re together, because they’re never very physically affectionate with each other – she doesn’t think she’s ever even seen them kiss – but when they start talking like this, domestic and so engrained into a routine, it is never more apparent. Even now, as she slides her laptop onto the table in front of her, plugging her headphones into the jack, JJ brushes his knuckles against Pope’s shoulder, which he leans into just for a second, and then steps away.

It hurts, of course it does, but what almost hurts more is their reluctance to be any more open with their relationship than these fleeting touches. She hopes it’s not because of her that they’re holding back, that they’re normally this reserved. She would hate if her desperately trying to keep her perverse gross crush on JJ at bay was misconstrued as homophobia, or something.

“I’ll pick something up,” she tunes in to hear JJ say, as he steps towards the door. “Kie, will you be staying?”

“For dinner?” He nods. “Uh, not sure. We’ll see how far we get.”

“Cool.” He shoots them a small, smile. “See you guys later.”

“Later, man.”

JJ disappears through the door. Kie watches him go for a beat longer than she should: and when she turns back to Pope, he’s got a calculating look in his eyes.

Her heart pounds. “So,” she says loudly, trying to distract him from whatever pieces he’s putting together, “should we start?”

Pope’s eyes clear, and he flicks open his textbook with a flourish. “Ready when you are.”

Time to settle in.

*

“Jesus,” Pope groans, “I feel my head is going to explode.”

Kie blearily looks up from her laptop. She doesn’t know how long it’s been since she last blinked: she thinks she’s developed dry-eye from the amount of time she’s spent staring gormlessly at the glare of her screen. What time is it? She simultaneously feels like she’s been here for an age and no time at all.

Pope is half-sprawled on the sofa, his shoulders sliding off and his head on the ground. He has flung his arm over his eyes and his textbook is spread open on his chest.

“What time is it?” she croaks.

He makes an unintelligible noise that’s a lot like a groan, before craning himself for his phone on the table and squinting at it. “Ten to five.”

“Jesus.” They’ve been here for almost five and a half hours. It’s certainly one of the most productive afternoons she’d had in a while, but she also doesn’t think she’s been closer to death. She’s mildly surprised she’s still able to formulate words.

“I want food,” Pope says mournfully. “And maybe also to drop out of school.”

“That bad?”

“I don’t even know how to process anymore. None of these words have meaning anymore.” He collapses back down onto the ground and puts his textbook over his head. “Maybe JJ had the right idea.”

“Do I hear my name?” And then that’s JJ himself, shaggy blond head appearing around the front door with a jangle of keys. He’s a smear of car oil on his cheek and three pizza boxes in his arms, and Kie honestly can’t decide which of the two is making him more attractive. It’s really not fair that he still looks so good when she’s sure she could probably be an exhibit in a haunted house right now. “Are you complimenting me again, Pope?”

“Why are we here, JJ?” Pope muses. “Why did you ever encourage me to pursue my dreams?”

“Because you get grouchy when you don’t reach your full potential.”

Pope looks a little touched at that. “Bro.”

“I’m not being nice, it’s for my own gain. I don’t want to live in the house with a grump.”

“That’s right, this apartment’s only big enough to accommodate your drama,” Pope agrees, tiredly. With some effort, he pushes him himself up onto his elbows, legs still spread akimbo on the sofa, and looks at Kie. “Pizza time?”

Even the word has her salivating. “Please.”

He staggers to his feet and heads towards the kitchen for paper towels as JJ balances the boxes on the table. The smell of melted cheese and garlic hits her and suddenly she realises just how ravenous she is. Aside from sharing the slice of cake with Pope and one of Sarah’s vegan protein bars she’d nicked that morning she doesn’t think she’s eaten all day.

Still, as JJ is flicking open the lids and trying to check whose is whose, it hits her that she doesn’t think she’s ever mentioned that she’s vegetarian – and it smells like all of them are pepperoni. “JJ—”

“That’s mine,” JJ decides, half to himself. He opens the next lid, and before she can say anything, glances at her. “Pepper and olive, that’s you, right?”

Her mouth falls open.

How the fuck did he know that?

“Uh,” she says, hoping to keep the surprise out of her voice, “yeah, that’s—that’s me.”

JJ heaves an evident sigh of relief. “Oh, thank fuck. I couldn’t remember what you liked and when I got to the till I panicked. I know you’re vegetarian though so I made sure not to get you any meat or anything – why are you looking at me like that? Fuck, are you not actually vegetarian? I could’ve sworn you were.”

“No, I—” She shakes her head. She’s speechless. “No, I am, but—how did you _know_ that?”

“We’ve gotten pizza before.”

Kie frowns. “But that was months ago.”

The last time they’d gotten pizza, it was Sarah and Kie’s third night in 54A, and John B had invited them around for dinner to welcome them officially. In hindsight – which isn’t strictly necessary, to be honest, Kie could smell his ulterior motives from a mile away even at the time – it was probably just a scheme to spend more time with Sarah under the guise of group bonding, but it was still a nice evening. They’d ordered four pizzas between them, and Kie thinks she vaguely remembers managing to put in that she didn’t eat meat as Pope was on the phone, but they’d all been shouting orders at him, JJ haggling him from the side about getting the best deal that involved a free bottle of soda as Pope got more and more panicked, that she’s surprised Pope even heard her, let alone _JJ_. She looks down at the pizza, mind whirring.

JJ shrugs. Suddenly he can’t quite meet her eyes. “Good memory, I guess.”

There’s something up. No one just remembers a pizza order from months ago, a pizza order that was probably barely decipherable through all the noise, especially since it was during the time she and JJ weren’t even _speaking_. But JJ’s ears are going progressively more and more pink, which she has learnt means he gets more and more snappish, he reacts to discomfiture like a kicking horse, so she doesn’t press, just says, softly, “Thank you.”

He shrugs again, but the line of his shoulders is less tense. “Don’t thank me, yours was the cheapest.”

“You got meat lovers for us, though, right, JJ?” Pope says, as he reappears with the paper towels. “With extra pepperoncini?”

“Yes, you weirdo.” JJ nudges the pizza box towards him. “Take your extra fucking pepperoncini.” Pope happily does so, and JJ takes his own pizza and collapses in the seat next to Kie on the couch, Pope’s deserted space – though much closer than Pope was. Their thighs are but mere inches apart. She feels every single of them like they are burning red hot.

Pope is seemingly unbothered by this change in seating arrangement, moving to collapse on a stool by the edge of the table, but before he does he pauses. “Wait, you remembered the barbecue sauce, didn’t you?”

JJ pauses. “What?”

Pope stares at him. “Dude! The barbecue sauce!”

“Who the fuck has barbecue sauce on their pizza?”

“How long have we known each other, JJ?” Pope tosses his pizza box back on the table. “You are useless. There’s a McDonalds close by, right? You think they’d let me just get one of those little sauce sachets?”

“You could always just steal one,” Kie offers. “Take from the rich.”

“Robin Hood,” JJ says, with a mouthful of pizza.

“More Karl Marx,” Kie says, “but you have the right spirit.” JJ bumps their shoulders together.

“Losers,” Pope grumbles, but not without affection. “Won’t be ten minutes. Don’t take any of my pizza, JJ.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, honey bunches,” JJ calls, as Pope grabs his keys and shoves his feet into his sneakers. “Don’t stray and be late.”

“Should’ve thought about that before you forget the barbecue sauce,” Pope shouts, and then the door slams behind him. There is a moment of silence as they hear his footsteps pad out, and then they both start snickering.

“He’s clearly really passionate about that,” Kie says, amused.

“I didn’t fuckin’ know that. I mean, who the fuck has barbecue sauce on pizzas?”

“Pope, apparently.”

“Knew he was a freak.” JJ takes another bite. “How was studying going?”

“Ugh.” Kie drops her head onto the back of the sofa, closing her eyes in frustration. Her headache has begun to fade now that she’s taken a break, but if she concentrates she can still feel her eyes throb. When she opens them again, JJ’s grinning at her.

“Wow, that good, huh?” She flips him off, and he laughs. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s just—” She sighs, pressing her hands into her temples. “Just this—fucking _paper_.”

“What’s it on?”

She gives him a look. “You’re asking me about my paper?”

“All right, sorry I asked.”

She groans. “No, sorry, I’m being a bitch. It’s okay.” She adjusts herself so she’s properly facing him, tucking her legs beneath her. “Just... it’s for my Film and Media class, right? I don’t even really want to be doing this, but it was either that or Music Theory and—fuck if I know anything about music. I’m doing it so I can fill up my requirements, and honestly it’s not that bad of a class, I actually kind of like it, but, like—I don’t know, this paper is just kicking my ass.”

“Jesus,” JJ says, “you’re really stressed about this.”

“That obvious?”

He gives her a look.

“Yeah, I know. And—yeah, I guess. I just—” She puts her hands over her eyes. “You know just when you sort of hit a block, you know? And you can’t do anymore? I’m sort of there.”

JJ chews on his pizza for a long moment, his face almost thoughtful. Then finally, just when she thinks he’s moving on, he says, “Give me your laptop.”

She frowns at him. “Uh, no?”

“I’m not stealing it, come on. I can try help you.”

“You want to help me write a paper?”

“You think I can’t?”

“I think I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”

“Yeah, well, been there, done that,” he says, and she barks out a surprised laugh. “Come on, pass it over.”

With a huff of disbelieving laughter, she does, and he opens the lid, flicking his fingers across the trackpad so the screen lights up.

“Password?”

“Carerra1234.”

He snorts. “Wow, a right fortress you have here.”

“Shut up.”

“Where’s the paper saved?”

“There’s a folder on my desktop called Essays.”

He hums. A beat, and then, “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“This fucking sucks. What the hell are you even talking about?”

“The male gaze in media.”

“Okay, well, first off, your font is fucking boring.”

“My font?”

“Yeah, of course you’re bored. I’m bored even looking at this.”

She frowns, and tries to lean over him to get to her laptop. “Hey, don’t change my _font_ —”

He elbows her off, gently. “Lie down and eat your pizza, Carerra.”

“What’s wrong with Arial?”

“Eat your pizza.”

“You don’t tell me what to do,” she says, grumpily, but dutifully she does, leaning back so her head is on the arm rest. Instinctively, her legs stretch out so her feet are in his lap, residue from the easy tactility she shares with Sarah, and she freezes, but JJ barely bats an eyelid, lifting the laptop she can have room. Something warms in her chest at the gesture, and she settles down, closing her eyes. Instantly, her headache soothes, shielded from the bright lights of the room. “What are you changing it to?”

“Not Arial, that’s for sure.” A pause. “Funky Monkey sounds good.”

She can’t help the laugh that bubbles from her. “Oh my God.”

“See how this works? I am about fifty percent more interested in reading this now.” There’s a beat, as he presumably takes another bite of pizza. “Right, you just lie there, and I’ll read it out. Just...” An uncomfortable pause. “I have dyslexia, so I might say some stuff wrong.”

“That’s fine,” she says.

“Okay.” Gently, he clears his throat. “In her essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, critic Laura Mulvey argued in the affirmative for the existence of what has universally been named the ‘male gaze’...”

Kie lets his voice wash over her, the words settling in her head. True to his word, he stumbles a few times over the longer words, but if anything it’s more helpful than hindering: she finds her brain going over and over the sentence forms, which ones are too long that he has to pause midway through to draw breath and which ones she hasn’t punctuated properly. She makes mental notes in her head with every line that he reads, and by the time he reaches the end, his voice almost hoarse, she has a conclusion formulating in her brain. She sits up and takes the laptop from him, typing out the bullet points for her final paragraph, and then scrolling upwards and fixing any clauses that hadn’t sounded right. To her amusement, the font has been changed to something garish and ridiculous, all the ‘i’s and ‘o’s made up of a string of hearts, but seeing it in a different structure to the font she was previously working it weirdly helps her scope out all the spelling mistakes (even if the full stops are also hearts). By the time she looks up, JJ’s giving her a soft, amused look.

“See?” he says, smugly. “Told you.”

She rolls her eyes, and changes the font back to what it was previously. “Whatever,” she says, but it doesn’t hold even nearly the level of blasé she’d been aiming for. She forgoes putting on a front and lets her expression soften, reaching out and taking his hand. “No, but—really, JJ. Thank you. That was—thank you.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “Anytime. I mean, it was actually kind of interesting.”

She smiles. “Yeah?”

“I didn’t know half this stuff.”

“Male privilege.” But she’s only teasing him, now.

“Yeah. I mean – I’m glad I don’t have to write like that ever again. But it was interesting.”

“Well,” she says, “the next time I’m stuck on an essay, I know who to call.”

His smile feels so treacherously soft. “Yeah.”

She suddenly realises that in her move to sit up and take the laptop off him, their faces have come very, very close to each other. He seems to realise the same time as she does, his expression sobering, eyes flickering between hers, and it’s as if all the air in the room has been sucked out. She can count his eyelashes if she wanted to: or the green flecks in his eyes, of which there are lots. They remind of her of the beach back home, whenever she’d go surfing when the sun was out and the ocean would reflect the sky. He still has the smudge of grease on his cheek, and she wants to move to swipe it away: but this moment suddenly feels so loaded that she is afraid if she reaches out to touch him she will shatter it, and she wants to keep this preserved, like when she’d catch fireflies in jars when she was younger.

JJ swallows, and she is so close she can’t even see it, just the way his tongue darts out to wet his lips. Is he leaning in? Her heart feels like it in her throat. Almost instinctively, she feels herself move a little closer, too, until their noses are but a whisker away from each other. She would just have to tilt her head and close the final inch and they would be kissing.

And then suddenly she remembers Pope.

Before she can even think, she wrenches herself away, feeling guilt like poison spear her chest so suddenly she almost becomes nauseous with it. She risks a glance back at JJ who is still sat there, blue eyes wide and confused and hurt, and suddenly she needs to get further away, so she stands on trembling legs, takes a step back.

He inhales sharply, eyes bewildered. She has to turn away.

What the fuck is she _doing_?

 _He’s taken_.

She sees his mouth open on an unspoken question, but before it can come out the door clicks open, and of fucking course, fucking _Pope_ appears through it, holding a fistful of sauce sachets in his hand. “Guess what?” he says. “McDonalds gave them to me for free. Didn’t even have to swindle these out of their greedy capitalistic hands.” His cheery mood is so jarring in the stilted silence of the room that it falls flat, like a firework underwater, and his smile slips a little, clearly reading the mood. “Is everything okay?”

Kie can’t be here any longer: not when she almost kissed JJ, the boyfriend of one of her best friends. Not when she almost fooled herself into believing that JJ was going to kiss her back.

Jesus fucking Christ. She is the worst person in the entire world.

“I need to go,” she says.

Pope frowns. “But I just got back.”

She doesn’t look at him, just shoves her laptop and books haphazardly in her bag, and then slings it over her shoulder, avoiding eye contact. “Thanks for the pizza,” she manages roughly: and then she is gone.

The sob only escapes her once the door closes safely behind her. Behind it, she hears Pope says, “What the fuck did you do to her?”

And JJ’s quiet, wounded voice: “I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise this started out being a funny story lol
> 
> anyway sorry for the delay! school sort of hit like a garbage truck lol. thanks to the girls and @tellmeboutprettythings on tumblr for helping me stay motivated. on the bright side, i think this should only have about one chapter left (which hopefully should be up in less time)! so stay tuned woop woop
> 
> thanks for reading! as always u can find me on [tumblr](https://smileymikey.tumblr.com/) :-D


	5. Chapter 5

Kie hides out for two days.

She has never been the kind to run from her problems: she is a firm believer in facing them head-on, which is probably why she never got along with the other girls at the Kook Academy, who were all content to play along to female social niceties and let their grievances simmer and fester in back-talk and gossip. One of the last things Kie would describe herself as would be a coward, because she’s not. She _knows_ she’s not.

Now, she feels like one.

She tries to go about her every day life as usual. Sarah comes back that night as chipper as always, which means JJ didn’t tell John B, and Kie takes silent comfort in the fact that her fucking idiocy didn’t force one of the best friendships she’s ever been part of to take sides. (Mostly because she knows they would all take JJ’s – and rightly fucking so.) She gets up early and heads to her lectures and goes to lunch with some girls from her Sociology class and eats a sandwich on the quad in the sunshine, and it’s almost like everything is normal—

Only it’s not. Because she goes to the library when she is sure Pope won’t be there, and takes the extra ten minutes and dollar fifty for the crappy hipster coffee shop across campus.

Realistically, she knows she can’t outrun JJ and Pope forever. They live across from her, for heaven’s sake, and there’s so much cross-contamination from John B and Sarah splitting their time in their respective rooms that it’s like both 54 apartments are joined. But she’s just so ashamed that she doesn’t think she could look in either of their eyes and see reflected back one of the most fucking _stupid_ moves she’s ever made.

It’s not even just the fact that she almost kissed JJ – though, that too, almost makes her double over in shame every time she thinks about it. It’s everything: that she saw that he and Pope were together and didn’t instantly put a pin in the butterflies that started taking flight, that it was so fucking _inappropriate_ that she kept on entertaining the idea, knowing he was taken, knowing he probably didn’t even like girls. She just feels embarrassed, and ashamed, and angry at herself for having ruined something she had held so special. She doesn’t think they will ever be comfortable looking at her again.

Still, on the fifth morning, she decides that enough is enough. She’s being pathetic – and if she wants any hope of rekindling this friendship, it’s on _her_ to pull on her big girl pants and apologise. She doesn’t know what she’s expecting to happen moping around 54A listening to John B and Sarah be cute through her bedroom wall.

She gets up, pulls on an outfit she’s sure has seen better days, grabs her bag and stoutly makes her way towards The Wreck. She knows JJ’s gone, she heard his front door open an hour before, so she swallows her pride and pushes the door open when she arrives before she can overthink it and turn on her heel.

Only – of fucking course – JJ’s not alone.

Pope’s sat at one of the barstools at the counter, making a precarious structure out of wooden coffee stirrers, and pulling triumphant faces at JJ behind the till every time he successfully adds one more. JJ says something she can’t hear and moves as if to blow it over, and Pope jerks so quickly in defensive of it the structure falls anyway. She can hear JJ’s laughter over the sound of Pope’s indignant cries.

They haven’t spotted her yet. She is paused in the entrance, door only half-open, the welcome bell tilted only a little. Seeing them together, smiling, makes her suddenly feel so guilty she turns to go, but before she can, a girl coming in behind her bumps into her.

“Watch where you’re going,” she snaps, and roughly pushes past, the door flying open and the bell jangling. _Fuck_ , she thinks, panicked, and stumbles in after her, almost tripping over the doorjamb. She looks up once she’s regained her footing and finds them both looking over at her. JJ’s smile is gone.

 _Fuck_.

 _Too late now_ , she thinks, grimly; swallows her pride, and heads over. To his credit, Pope’s smile does not waver: it is lined in something that could be sympathy, but she’ll take it any day over the guardedness in JJ’s eyes. “As we live and breathe,” Pope declares. “Say, JJ, do you see that?”

JJ rolls his eyes with the air of someone who has had to entertain this sort of drama many times. “See what, Pope?”

“A figure that looks the spitting image of our old neighbour Kiara. But surely not – she’s been dead two days, it must be a mirage of sorts.”

“You’re funny,” Kie says.

“I know,” Pope says, grinning. He holds up his hand. “Good to see you back from the dead, Carerra.”

Kie rolls her eyes to hide her relief and indulges him in the high-five. She hopes it comes off reluctant as always and not grateful. “You, too. Sorry I... disappeared like that.”

“Nah, it’s chill. We all have those days. Right, JJ?” He elbows him.

“Get away with your sharp-ass elbows,” JJ snaps at him, and Pope bops him on the nose with a coffee stirrer.

“Grumpy guts. You’ve missed the most epic of sulks, Kie.”

Kie is sure both of them give Pope a look that could probably kill a horse, let alone a man. “Right,” she says, heart racing.

Before either of them can say anything further, JJ cuts in roughly. “Can I get you anything, Kie?”

Something that has been roaring in her chest since she left 54B that day settles at hearing him call her Kie – if he’d said Kiara she might have fallen through the floor. But there’s still something wrong, because it doesn’t sound the way she’s become accustomed to hearing her name from him: lilting, like there’s a joke only they’re in on, something just for them. It made her feel special. Hearing it so flat makes her chest clench.

Besides. He’s never had to ask her that before.

“Just a black coffee,” she says. Say something. Ask why.

That at least makes him pause, and something like hope takes off in her ribs. It’s crushed immediately flat when he just shrugs and moves towards the coffee machine.

As soon as he’s out of earshot, Pope’s face falls, and he leans in close. “Okay, what the fuck happened between the two of you?”

She stares at him.

He doesn’t know.

“He didn’t tell you?” she says. Fuck him, she thinks savagely: only it’s more like fuck her, because the last person whose fault this is is JJ. She’s going to have to look Pope in the eyes, the boy who has quickly become one of her closest friends, and say _I nearly kissed your boyfriend_ and she’ll deserve it when he never speaks to her again. The punishment fits the crime, she supposes.

Pope frowns. “What? No! He’s shut up like a clam, he won’t say anything. Did he do something? Is that why we haven’t seen you around?”

Did _JJ_ do something? “No! I mean—”

Pope’s expression is concerned and so, so earnest. She wishes he was easier to hate. “Do you need me to talk to him? Because—you’re my friend, too, you know? Obviously JJ and I are—” He crosses his fingers, “but I know he sometimes messes up.”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“No?”

She can’t look at him. “No, I—”

But before she can say anything, JJ appears, and slides over a takeaway cup of coffee. He may not have told Pope or JJ what she did, but the takeaway cup in itself is the clearest of indicators that he wants her gone. “Here,” he says. “Two-twenty.”

She fumbles around for her purse and slides over the right amount of bills and nickels, and watches as he counts them to himself, brow furrowed, lips mouthing the numbers as he moves them from one side of the counter to the other. Before she can lose her nerve, she says, “Don’t I get the neighbour discount?”

For the first time since coming in, JJ properly looks at her in the eyes. His eyes are a little dimmed, but the corner of his lips tug up in what looks like a hint of amusement. He looks down at the pile of change, and slides back over ten cents.

“Discount,” he says.

She takes it, feels the rounded edges cut into her palm. It’s a little dance they’ve created, this exchange: ten cents forwards, ten cents back. Every time she has put it into the pocket of his apron, and he holds her gaze like he’s daring her too. It is indecipherable, what is going on in his head.

Maybe it would fix things if she did. But it has a bigger chance of just making things worse.

So instead of his pocket, she drops it in the tip jar; watches his expression drop a little with it as well. “For the company,” she says.

His smile is tiny and not very genuine. “Your patronage is appreciated.”

Pope’s eyes bounce between them like he’s watching a game of ping-pong. There’s not really much left for her here, short of getting down on her knees to grovel. She just takes her coffee, nods out a small goodbye, and turns to leave.

She throws the coffee in the bin as soon as she’s rounded the corner.

*

She’s not sulking. She’s not.

It’s just—she’s been trying to start this goddamn paper for days now, and just when she settles down in her room she hears Sarah and John B arrive back from wherever they’ve been yodelling (they go on _hikes_ together; if Kie weren’t so disgustingly single she might have it in her to find that cute) and collapse on the sofa in the living room, giggling to each other about something or other, and speaking in... Russian? Ugh, Kie needs to get laid _so bad_.

“Not my fault you can’t keep up, _Vlad_ ,” Sarah says smugly, from the room over, and Kie stares at the ceiling and wishes for death.

It’s not like she has anything against Sarah and John B or anything: in fact, quite the opposite. They _are_ very sweet together, in that way that almost gets too much, like the dozenth time Kie’s walked in on them feeding each other and playing footsy under the table. It’s just now, it’s become almost grating. Like, do they have to do coupley things in public, where people can see? Do they have no shame?

(Okay, so she’s sulking a little.)

It’s been a week since the morning at The Wreck, and if anything it only seems to have made things worse, as Kie can count on one hand the number of times she and JJ have spoken since then. And if she considers ‘conversation’ as ‘beyond small talk’ than it’s only one finger, because the extent to which she and JJ have exchanged any sorts of words have been surface level pleasantries as they nod at each other in the stairwell, or across the room. And it _hurts_.

Thing is, it’s not even just the death of any sort of possibility of her and JJ getting together that she’s mourning – because she supposes she’s known that all along. But she just misses him, too: his easy companionship, the hours they could spend lying opposite each other on the couch, Kie typing at her laptop and JJ sending her memes even though they were in the same room that made her roll her eyes and him grin triumphantly.

If she’d known that the cost to her idiocy was his friendship, she’d have been a lot more careful. But she was blind and selfish and careless and now she’s lost one of the best friends she’s made because of it.

Through the wall, she hears Sarah giggle again, and something in her snaps. She slams her laptop closed and stomps out of her room to the living room, ready to give them a piece of mind and tell them to stop being so goddamn cute so she can write her paper, but then as she heads through the doorway, she sees them cuddled up on the couch, laughing with each other, and she deflates.

Ugh.

John B, who is lying with his head on Sarah’s tummy, in the middle of a story involving a pair of pants, spots her first lurking in the doorway, and he stops speaking, face splitting in a grin. “Kie!” he says, and Sarah looks up, too. “We didn’t know you were home.”

Any irrational anger Kie had towards them dissipates in a rush. She shakes her head. “I was just in my room. Just wanted to come say hello.”

John B looks very pleased at this. “Well, always great to see you.”

“Were we interrupting anything?” Sarah says. “Sorry, I didn’t realise you were still here, we would’ve gone across the hall if we knew.”

Kie shrugs. “Just a paper. I can do it another time. Who’s Vlad?”

Both of them go very pink.

“Oh, Christ,” Kie says, “it’s a sex thing?”

“We don’t kink-shame in this house,” Sarah says imperiously, which means it fucking is, and ugh.

“Gross,” Kie mutters, and collapses in the armchair across from them. “If you weren’t my friends you’d be so easy to hate.”

“I think you just need to get laid,” Sarah tells her, which is pretty fucking arrogant coming from someone who currently has a willing boyfriend lying right next to her. Kie also has the sense to realise that this is mostly just angry single-person projection and she tells herself to remember that she does not have anything against Sarah nor her willing boyfriend and it’s not their fault she is destined to be alone.

Still, it’s pretty depressing, especially when she watches John B absently reach up and twist a strand of Sarah’s hair around his finger. Kie sighs morosely.

“I know,” she says, sadly. “I just don’t think it’s in the cards for me right now.”

John B frowns at her. “Why do you think that?”

Kie waves her arm. “I don’t know. None of the boys I’ve liked recently have been viable options, to put it that way, and it’s not like anyone is particularly eager to get with me either.”

“Wait, you turned JJ down?” says John B. “Aw, that kind of sucks, I thought you guys would be good together.”

Everything stops. Even Sarah stops playing with his hair and stares down at the top of his head.

Carefully, Kie says, “What?”

“Yeah, he’s liked you for ages,” John B says, casually, like this currently isn’t throwing Kie’s world off its fucking axis. Then finally he reads the room and his expression falters. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“John B,” Kie says, slowly, “JJ _hasn’t_ asked me out.”

John B’s eyes go very wide. “Oh, shit.”

Kie and Sarah make eye contact above his head. Kie’s somewhat glad to see that Sarah looks just as confused as she feels. What the _fuck_? What is _happening_? “Baby,” Sarah says, slowly, “does JJ like Kie?”

Panicked, John B’s eyes flick around the room. “Uh...”

“John B,” Sarah says.

“I thought he told you!” John B says to Kie. “Isn’t that why he’s been sad lately? Because you turned him down?”

 _Turned him down?_ “But...” Kie’s brain scrambles over everything, every single interaction she and JJ have ever had, all the way from that first day in 54B, to the morning in The Wreck. She sits up slowly, puts her hands to her temples, and tries not to look like she’s dying. “But... Pope?”

John B frowns. “Pope?”

“Baby, aren’t he and JJ dating?” Sarah says.

“No,” John B says, “why on earth would you think that?” He pauses. “Wait, did they tell you they are? You know, because I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Kie says, “they’re _not_?”

“No?”

Jesus fucking Christ.

Kie stares speechlessly at Sarah over the top of his head, who looks as shocked as she feels. “Never?” Sarah says. “But—they’re so affectionate!”

“Yeah,” John B says, confused, “they’re friends?”

“They kiss each other! On the cheek!”

“They sort of have this weird game of gay chicken going on, I don’t really pretend to understand.”

Kie did not spend two months unnecessarily pining over a game of gay chicken. What the _fuck_.

“You’re telling me,” she says slowly, “that JJ and Pope aren’t dating. Never have been.”

“Wait, you thought they _were_?”

“I thought JJ was _gay_!”

If it were any other situation, she would have loved to take a picture of John B’s face. The expression he is wearing is nothing short of priceless. “No, no, definitely not! Pope, either. Well,” he amends, “I actually think Pope is in the very least a little bit bicurious, but I’d never say anything unless he told me first, of course—”

JJ likes girls.

JJ likes _her_.

She rises unsteadily to her feet. She needs to see him right now. Like, this instant.

“John B,” she interrupts, and he pauses in his allyship speech, “is JJ at home right now?”

His eyes go fantastically wide. “Are you going to see him?”

“Is he home?”

“He should be. Don’t tell him I told you, though,” he adds, “he’ll have my balls. I didn’t mean for it to come out.”

“I doubt Kie’s complaining, baby,” Sarah says, with a laugh. She winks at her over the top of his head. “Get it, girl.”

Their matching smiles could probably light up a room. Kie nods at them to distract from the fact her heart has started racing in her chest, and before she has time to overthink it and slink back into her room, she crosses to the door, across the landing, and pounds on 54B.

Of course, Pope is the one to answer it, a pair of glasses crookedly on his nose. She doesn’t think she’s ever been so glad to see him.

“Kie!” he says, sounding pleased. “Hey, wasn’t expecting you! Did John B and Sarah drive you out?”

 _You don’t even know_ , she thinks. “Sort of. Is JJ in?”

Pope blinks. “Uh... yeah, he’s just in his room, but—”

That’s all she needs to hear. She pushes past him into the apartment, ignoring his half-hearted protests as he scrambles behind her, just powers through the mess of the living room which is covered in worksheets and open textbooks and heads straight for JJ’s room.

It’s not until she’s pounding on it that it occurs to her that she doesn’t think she’s ever been inside JJ’s room before. Of course, she’s spent countless hours in the living room, or what sensibility of a living room can exist in an apartment scarcely bigger than a broom cupboard – she thinks if she counted it up she’d find her time would be pretty evenly split between both apartments – but JJ and Pope’s room always felt like too much of an intensely private thing to go into. She can hear loud angry music from within, and she’s hit by a sudden wave of déjà vu, from the first day all those months ago when she had first approached 54B to ask for help with the couch.

She knocks again, harder, unsure if he’s heard her, and from within there comes a grouchy, “Fuck _off_ , Pope!”

That’s as good an invitation as it seems Kie’s going to get, so she pushes the door open and steps in. A small part of her mind takes it in for the first time (it’s sort of just how she expected a room shared by two dudes to look: Spartan, filled with the bare minimum of furniture, just two beds and a green dresser in between) but most of it is preoccupied with the sight of JJ lying prone on his bed, music blasting from his phone, tossing a ball up and down on his bed. He doesn’t even look up when she comes in, just lets out a sigh so deep it sounds like it came from something cavernous in him, and says, “Pope, for the last goddamn _time_ —”

“Why didn’t you tell me you liked me?”

In any situation, the way JJ shoots up like a rocket would almost be comical. For the first time, his eyes land on her, flung wide in alarm, and his whole body goes rigid. “ _Kie_?”

His expression is carefully schooled but Kie can see the panic in his face. Behind him, his phone growls out something about how life is meaningless and love is futile, and he quickly shuts it off with a jerky movement. She folds her arms, waiting, as his mouth attempts several times to form words, and tries not to look like she’s holding herself together. She’s afraid if she lets go of her elbows her chest will split open and her ribcage will spill right out, blood and guts and viscera on the floor. She waits, watches as he sits up, lifts a hand to his head; palms the back of his head, a nervous tick. She can almost hear his pulse.

Finally, he clears his throat. “Who told you?”

That’s not a no. Something swells in her chest. “That doesn’t matter,” she says, filled with a relief so palpable it almost makes her tremble. “What matters is that I didn’t hear it from _you_.”

JJ swallows audibly. When he exhales, it is tired. “What do you want me to say, Kie? You made it pretty fucking obvious you weren’t interested, so I backed off.”

She stares at him.

 _What_?

He thought she wasn’t interested?

“What are you talking about?” she says.

His expression is carefully guarded. “Look, if you’re here to just—”

“JJ, since when were the fuck you interested in _me_?”

“Since the first day I fucking saw you, Kie, Jesus—”

She’s fallen into an alternate timeline. Surely, that must be it. She stares at him, gob-fucking-smacked. “But—you were an asshole!” is all she can think to say. _Since the first day I fucking saw you._ What the hell is going _on_?

JJ scrubs a hand across his face, pained. “That’s—that’s not the first time I saw you.”

What?

Her voice is barely above a whisper. “What are you talking about?”

“I—” He breaks off, frustrated, and stands, palming the back of his head. Half-turns, doesn’t meet her eyes. “I’ve been working at The Wreck for six fucking months, Kie. You—you came in almost every day, and I saw you on the first day the school year started and it was like—you—” His ears go pink, and his voice comes out roughly. “You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, but—you never noticed me. Not once. You were always in a rush, always had to get somewhere, and—and that’s fine, you know, but for months I’d been trying to work up the nerve to ask you out, to get your number, anything, and— _fuck_ , Kie, I told Pope and John B about you, about this beautiful girl who got the same thing every day, and—and I was going to do it. I was going to, I had planned it, I was gonna draw something on your cup, and maybe make you laugh, and then I’d introduce myself and—” He breaks off. “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it. Because then one day I come out of my room and you’re—there, in our fucking living room, and it turns out you’re moving in across the hall.”

She stares at him. Her heartbeat feels like it’s in her fucking ears.

“I know I acted like an asshole,” he says. “And I’m—really sorry. I didn’t mean to, I just—I had a plan, of how it was going to go, and you—sort of threw a wrench in it, and I was so surprised I didn’t know what to think. I just—shut up.” He lets out a frustrated noise, runs a hand through his hair. “And then we became friends and I—I don’t know. I thought I had a chance. I thought—maybe I wasn’t imagining it. And you liked me back. But then I tried to—I tried to kiss you and you pulled away looking like I’d fucking—shot you in the face, and then fucking Pope comes in and you look horrified, like he’d caught us, and—” He shrugs. His shoulders are squared, defensive. Kie can’t _breathe_. “Well, I can take a fucking hint.”

_You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I told Pope and John B about you. I thought maybe I wasn’t imagining it, and you liked me back._

Kie feels her mind spin in hyper-speed over the events of the past two months, every second they’ve spent together, every moment she’s misinterpreted as something else. Can she have _missed_ that? Can she have been so consumed in her own guilt that she didn’t notice JJ right in _front_ of her?

Six feet away, warm and real and tangible, JJ risks a glance at her, eyes uncertain, and then he breaks it, roughly, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Look, if you’re just here to rub it in—”

“JJ,” she says, trembling, “you _fucker_ , I thought Pope was dating _you_.”

JJ’s eyes bug out of his head like saucers. “ _What_?”

“You—” She has spent so many nights lying in bed, wondering what she would say if she could, arranging her words so they can capture even a slither of what she feels, but in the face of JJ, and his stupid hair, smushed to one side from lying down, and stupid blue eyes, it all disappears from sight. “JJ, I—as soon as I saw you in your apartment I liked you. I just—you and Pope were so affectionate and I— _assumed_ —but it was okay, because you were an asshole, and I hated you, until you weren’t, and I didn’t, and you don’t know how fucking hard it was to have to try and pretend like I didn’t have this huge, _inappropriate_ crush on you—”

“You liked me back,” JJ repeats in disbelief. His eyes look like he can’t even dare to hope, and Kie wants to kiss him so fucking bad.

“I’ve liked you for _weeks_ ,” she cries. “I just—I couldn’t do anything about it. And then we almost kissed and I thought—I thought I’d just done something terrible, by making a move on you when you were in a relationship with another dude and I felt so fucking _guilty_ —but then John B—”

“That _fucker_ ,” JJ says, but it comes out through a weird breathless, disbelieving laugh. “I _knew_ it was him.” He glances at her. His expression feels so tentative, like he scarcely dare to believe. “So—you never liked Pope.”

She shakes her head. She feels weirdly breathless. “And you—neither?”

He lets out a sort of hysterical laugh. “Not in any lifetime.”

They both stare at each other. Suddenly, the five feet between them feels all too far. Kie feels herself begin to thrum with anticipation.

_This is happening. This is real. JJ likes girls and JJ likes me._

“So what now?” he says.

Big girl pants, Kie. She swallows, licks her lips. “I’m not too sure,” she says honestly, “but I kind of want to kiss you.”

The smile that spreads across his face almost knocks her off her feet. “Oh, thank fuck,” he breathes: makes two long strides, takes her face in his hands, and presses his lips to hers.

Kie’s been kissed before: by four different people, and only twice by people who counted. Brian from middle school, who tasted of cinnamon gum and told her he liked the colour of her braces, and Andy from high school, who put his hands on her shoulders at the school dance and kissed her like it was a clinical procedure. (Turned out to be gay, which is... the most beautiful of ironies.) Two others, from pub crawls Sarah dragged her on. (One told her he liked exotic women. Unfortunately, that was _after_ the kiss.)

Point is, she’s been kissed before. But she’s never been kissed quite like this.

JJ kisses the same way he moves: careful and mischievous, with a tinge of something almost desperate, like he’s afraid he lets her go she’s going to disappear. His throat is as warm as she imagined it to be all those months ago, and she can feel his pulse fluttering against her fingers, though it may be hers, which is rushing in her ears. One hand falls from her face to her hip, the other slides into her hair, and Kie can’t help the surge of affection that makes her push forward, onto her tiptoes, fisting at his shirt.

For a kiss that’s two months overdue: it’s pretty fucking awesome.

They pull away only when breathing becomes a necessity, but JJ doesn’t let her go far, dropping his forehead against hers, his exhale dusting her cheek. She opens her eyes, looks straight into his: thinks she’d be perfectly happy to stay here forever, in the golden brace of his arms, eyes as blue as the ocean she’d go swimming in back in Figure Eight. She can’t remember the last time she was filled with so much elation. If he lets her go she’d probably float all the way up the ceiling.

She reaches up, fits the side of her face into her hand.

“Hi,” she whispers.

He smiles at her. It’s the most beautiful thing. “Hey.”

She kisses him again, because she can. It makes her toes curl. “I can’t believe that us so long,” she complains, softly, when they break away. “Jesus.”

“Worth it, though.”

“Why didn’t we just _talk_ to each other?”

“That would’ve been too easy.”

“All I would’ve had to do is just... said, I don’t know, are you dating?”

JJ snorts at that. “I still can’t believe you thought I was with _Pope_.”

“You would too, if you heard the way he talked.” She tries her best impression. “ _JJ and I... we’re more than friends_...”

“You’re so fucking cute,” JJ says, which is not what she was aiming for, but she warms all the way down to her toes anyway. “As in _brothers_.”

“I didn’t know that. Gay chicken?”

“Like you and Sarah don’t grope each other.”

“That’s different.”

“Oh, it is?” And now he’s teasing her, strokes a thumb across her face. Instinctively, she smiles, and he fits his print into the corner of her mouth. “It’s _different_ , is it? How? Sounds like sexism to me.” She rolls her eyes. “Am I wrong?”

“You’re the one who thought I liked Pope,” she says, petulantly.

He laughs at that. “Jesus, the cockblock. We’re never forgiving him.”

“Maybe a little.” He raises an eyebrow, she traces it with the very tip of her finger. “Well, it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

His face softens. “Yeah. It did.”

She has to kiss him again, when his face does that. And again. And again. She thinks she’d be content to stay here forever, kissing him in his small bedroom, one of his kind, clever hands folded over one of her hips like he’s trying to imprint her skeleton into his palms, into his life line. The idea is so unfathomably sweet that she slows the kiss down from where it was beginning to build, just for a moment, sweetens it: hopes he can tell just how much he means to her.

They part for a split second, just to catch their breath, and in the inch between their noses Kie can see how dark his eyes have gotten, and it’s so hot that she feels herself flush. She presses in even impossibly closer, tilts her chin, is just about to reconnect their lips—

“Hey, JJ, have you seen—”

“You’re fucking _kidding_ me,” JJ hisses. Kie bites her lip to suppress a laugh as she turns her head to look at Pope stood in the doorway, eyes as huge as saucers. They’re not kissing, but neither of them have stepped away: instead, JJ just leans his forehead on Kie’s shoulder as she shakes with silent laughter.

“Wait,” Pope says, a grin spreading across his face, “are you—”

“Pope,” JJ says, “you have three seconds to get out.”

Pope ignores this. “What did I fucking say, my matchmaking _worked_ —”

“Pope—” JJ threatens.

“It’s probably in your best interest if you get out now,” Kie says.

Pope smiles dopily at them both like a proud parent. “Oh, you _guys_ ,” he says.

“Seriously, dude,” JJ says.

Pope flicks them a thumbs-up, and disappears.

When Kie turns back to his JJ, he looks a mix between fond and exasperated. She raises an eyebrow. “Matchmaking?” she says.

JJ rolls his eyes. “Guess what didn’t need maintenance.”

“ _Oh_ , he’s good.”

“Mm.” Then his fingers creep up above the waistband of her jeans, touch the bare skin under her shirt, and she feels herself shiver. “So,” he drawls, “no offence, but I don’t think I want to talk about Pope anymore.”

Neither does she, but she can’t help but play one more time. “Really?” she says. “You know, because I’ve always liked him—”

He tackles her to the bed, laughing. She doesn’t think she’s ever been happier.

*

(When they emerge several hours later, Pope has been joined by John B and Sarah, who are all sitting around a cake that reads CONGRATS ON THE SEX!

“You better not turn into John B and Sarah,” Pope threatens, as they all help themselves to a generous slice. “I don’t think I could survive if I was just surrounded by sickeningly sweet love all the time.”

Kie snorts. “I promise you, we won’t.”

“Yeah, man,” JJ says, “come on.”

“We’re not that gross,” Kie says, as she feeds JJ a forkful of cake from where she’s sat on his lap. “I mean, who do you think we are?”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bi!pope ftw (bi!pogues ftw let's be real)
> 
> hope u enjoyed that! thank u for all for indulging me in this silly fic, which was mainly just an excuse to be incredibly self-indulgent. u are all very lovely! shoutout to lara who guessed that jj saw kie at the wreck months before she moved in from ages ago.
> 
> as always im on [tumblr](https://smileymikey.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> (also the very lovely lara and katie have put together a [jiara fanfiction awards](https://jiarafanfictionawards.tumblr.com/)! go and vote for ur fave fics!)


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